


Blind

by FloraOne



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: (Ish) - Freeform, Awkward Sex, Dry Humping, Established Relationship, F/M, Fingering, Go Seduce Your Archnemesis, Huddling For Warmth, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Introduction By Hook-Up, Just Friends, Masturbation, Penis In Vagina Sex, Pining, Thank God We're Alive Sex, Tumblr: Smutember
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:02:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26724862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloraOne/pseuds/FloraOne
Summary: Sailor Moon loved Tuxedo Mask, and Tuxedo Mask loved Sailor Moon, and nothing in the whole world terrified Tsukino Usagi more. Written for Smutember2020
Relationships: Chiba Mamoru/Tsukino Usagi
Comments: 63
Kudos: 217
Collections: Smutember 2020 Sailor Moon Fandom





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> So, here's a fic I DIDN'T plan, and it's not the one I announced last week. I started writing this the day before yesterday and then kind of never stopped. It's finished, so you'll get the next (and last) chapter super soon, and it's also weirdly personal lol. However, it fits into a TON of Smutember tropes, so I had to finish this last minute anyway. (Let's see if I ALSO manage to finish my actually PLANNED smutember fics, heh.) But yeah, this is Huddling For Warmth, Established Relationship, Just Friends, Introduction By HookUp, Go Seduce My Archnemesis-ish, Thank God We're Alive Sex, Pining, and Awkward Sex. Yes, I also didn't think these tropes could ever fit all into the same fic too, lol.
> 
> Anyway. Because this was super last minute, I had people help me super last minute, too. Thank you so SO much to both Antigone2 and Daikon. You guys have all my fingers wrapped into permanent cheesy heart-signs.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy this, and I'd love to hear from you!

* * *

Blind

Written for Smutember 2020

* * *

Part I

* * *

As was usually the case when Tsukino Usagi had a klutz-attack, Chiba Mamoru just _had_ to be right there.

This time she really wanted to scream.

The fucking bamboo cup was new. She didn't even LIKE the coffee inside. Had let the barista put in two more shots of vanilla to make it bearable. But tomorrow she was supposed to be a grown-up, and grown-ups liked coffee and drank from responsible, sophisticated to-go cups. However, her grown-up-passing bamboo cup had betrayed her, fell apart on her, and it had exploded all over her fancy, thick, wheat-colored coat, her boots, her shopping bags, and all the new clothes in it that she'd bought.

Clothes she would need tomorrow.

But yeah, so the thing came apart in her hands because _of course_ , and it came apart in her hands _just_ as she had her weekly run-in with Mamoru (quite literally, why did she always have to run like RIGHT into him), and her phone dropped, her bags dropped, clothes spilling from it all over the sidewalk, and her cup exploded all over the contents of her bags. One shoe from her new pair of semi-expensive suede pumps rolled down the sidewalk like a sad little bowling pin.

 _Fuck_.

And Mamoru, the absolute jerk, had the audacity to laugh at her.

He'd jumped a little, away from under her coffee projectile, but immediately started snorting, then knelt down to help her gather up her things.

And no, not the malicious kind. Not like he used to when they were younger. More the affectionate kind. In fact, when she looked up to glare at him witheringly, he was giving her the softest fucking look. But it just made her even angrier and she snarled and ripped her phone from his hands and dropped it somewhere with her new blouses.

"O- _kay_ ," he said, carefully. "Bad day, I get it, and you're—"

"I know, I know, I'm a useless and unladylike klutz and no boy will ever like me, blah blah blah," she spat angrily, and punched her stained clothes back into the two paper bags, angrily pushing back her bangs from her face. There were tiny brown droplets of liquid on _all_ of them, every item, how did she even _manage_ that?!

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him recoil a bit. "I didn't say that."

She whipped up her head to give him a _look_.

And the fucking douche looked exceptionally pretty today. Dark jeans, nice shirt, leather jacket in a nice cut that she saw him in whenever he was out with his motorcycle these days. His skin gleaming in the golden scenery of the autumn-kissed trees around them. Good-fucking-hair-day on top. Why did he always have to look so exceptionally good whenever he saw her fail yet again?

Around them, people swerved to avoid them. Muttering a little. They did hold up traffic, and Juuban-dori was busy that time of day.

"I mean I didn't say that _today_ ," he clarified with a frown, and as she'd put the last garment in the bag and straightened, he got up, too. And held out her pink little faux leather handbag she hadn't even noticed she'd dropped as well. "Are you ok?"

She sighed hard. Before, of-fucking- _course_ , one of the vanilla-coffee-soaked paper bags _ripped_ , and all her new clothes she'd just punched back into it fell back on the sidewalk through the new hole in the bottom. Shrieking, her to-go cup once again flung away from her and hit him. Just a few droplets this time, but he jumped away from her startled.

Usagi grunt-shrieked. Fucking _done_ with this day.

He _laughed_. A fucking delighted belly-laugh, as if she was _just_ the most amusing thing. His personal little clown.

"Maybe _just_ make sure that hypothetical boyfriend is a little bullet-proof," he snorted.

She hit him with a suede pump and glared at him even harder as his hands went up.

"That was a joke," he informed her, eyes twinkling.

Well, why was _he_ in such a good fucking mood?

Once again, Chiba Mamoru knelt in that infuriatingly graceful way and helped her gather up her things.

"What are all these for?" he asked. This time, he didn't put the clothes back in her bag. He folded them with a flick of his hands, like in those crazy YouTube videos where people pinched clothes and they magically turned out folded, and put them on his knee. She stared at it dumbly.

"I'm starting a new job tomorrow," she said a little reluctantly, perhaps a bit too self-consciously.

He lifted his head. His hair shifted across his forehead as he tilted it at her in question, and she shrugged.

"I wanted to pretend to look smart," she mumbled, and with that, he was done folding her clothes, tags neatly tucked into the front like in the shops. Got back up with them in a soft pile under his arm.

"By wearing muted-color blouses and high heels?" His look was a little off-putting.

She shrugged awkwardly.

He nodded down the red-cobbled street. It was their silent-conversation-speak for 'I'm going that way, too.' They hadn't been doing this since yesterday, after all.

Sighing, she started walking beside him, and he didn't give her back her clothes.

"What kinda job?" he asked, looking at her profile.

She pressed her lips together tightly. "It's a secretary job at my father's newspaper."

She knew without looking how he'd react, and he didn't disappoint. His eyebrows were in his hairline when she did sneak a peek, and her frown turned harder.

" _What_?" she asked in annoyance.

He looked like he was trying to consider his words carefully. But then he obviously decided on 'blunt,' after all. "Do you really think 'secretary' is a good job for you?"

She tried to cross her arms. Except her bag jostled and she remembered that she maybe should refrain from whipping it about the place, lest it break too. And so she just glared. "What, you're saying I'm too useless for that, too?"

His look was utterly annoyed. And yeah, she _was_ in a foul mood. " _No…_ " he started, emphasizing it hard. "I'm just saying maybe you shouldn't be in a job where you need to be super organized and feel like you have to pretend you're something you're not."

She pouted sourly. "Right, because YOU think the way I am is just amazing."

"What if I do?" he shot at her.

Her glare was mocking. How fucking dare he. "Ha, Ha," she mocked right back.

His look was so frigging exasperated it would have been amusing were she in a better mood. But she wasn't.

"I do have a boyfriend, I'll have you know," she mumbled. It felt like a sort-of-revenge act, after all that time. But it didn't end up feeling like she wanted it to. Instead, it felt weird immediately. Weird timing, weird information, weird everything. She wanted to take it back immediately, pluck the words back up from the air and cram them back into her mouth.

It felt wrong. And complicated. And no one could know.

But Mamoru's step faltered, and he blinked at her, taken aback.

She scrunched up her nose, blushed, and walked on. Refusing to look at him. "Well I _kind_ of have a boyfriend," she corrected.

He lifted one eyebrow in something akin to amusement. "Kind of?"

She huffed, whipped her head back around to face the street and not him, and her streamers of hair slapped around her a little. "It's complicated."

"Ah."

With that, they'd arrived at the fork in the road where they almost parted ways. Where he would walk to his fancy, cool-people apartment building, and she would walk down the little residential lane where she still lived with her parents after all this time, because it was cheaper that way.

She sighed, and the wind seemed to listen. It rustled the trees around them in unison with her exhale. Red and orange and yellow and brown and green leaves dancing in the wind around them for a bit.

"So, when are you starting?" he said, hovering.

She whipped her face back up to him, absentminded. "Huh?"

"Your new job," he asked, and his hands wandered into the pockets of his dark jeans.

Ah. She nodded sharply. "Tomorrow," she answered dutifully, then frowned again at her ruined clothes.

He nodded. Then he offered her the bundle of clothes still tucked underneath his arm, sprinkled in brown, but carefully folded. "Well, good luck, Odango Atama," he said.

She took the clothes, held them against her chest with one arm.

"Knock them dead," he added with a twinkle in his eyes.

She rolled her eyes in answer, but smiled.

And when she'd already turned and started walking down the residential lane, he called after her.

"Usagi?"

She pivoted on the spot. He hadn't walked away at all. "Hm?"

His face was utterly serious all of a sudden. "I hope he treats you well," he said.

Huh?

He shrugged. "Your 'kind of' boyfriend."

She blinked, hard. And her heart hammered against her chest, utterly weirdly. But then she frowned, crinkled her nose, spoke before thinking. "As well as he can," she mumbled without thought, and that, too, she immediately wanted to take back.

She did leave then, even when Mamoru was still frowning at her. Frowning in the way he did when he was about to scold her, or when she was doing something reckless. Frowning at her like he did when he didn't like the sound of what she was saying.

But he didn't say anything, and she was glad. She couldn't really explain it to him, after all.

* * *

Sailor Moon gasped when Tuxedo Mask pressed her against the wire-mesh fence high on top of the roof of her old school, the deep glow of Tokyo's skyline at night stretching out before her.

She gasped again, gloved hands curling into the mesh as she arched her back when he pressed back against her harder. It felt so delicious, the fence in front of her, this lean, perfect, hard man behind her. That so absurdly arousing pressure of being crushed by a hard, warm, turned-on, larger body. And when he reached around so wildly, so frantically, his hand down her crotch and his fingers pressing deep against the fabric directly covering her slit, she lolled the back of her head into the crook of his shoulder and fell so heavily against him he had to press her against the fence even harder to keep her upright.

She wanted it. She wanted her whole body to be covered in a pattern of marks left by the mesh, a keepsake for her memory she would get to hold on to just a little longer until he was inevitably gone again.

"Please," she whimpered, both hands clawed into the fence, holding her up, and he groaned in that guttural way and pressed soft lips so very tenderly against the nape of her neck. For a second, his hand left her, and she whined. But she felt it moving up her back, heard the grunt as he brought it to his lips, and when it returned between her legs, his hand was finally bare.

She mewled brokenly when he finally wriggled his hand into the fabric of her fuku, and his fingers touched her weeping sex.

She spread her legs a little wider for him.

He was clumsy, unpracticed, but she was so wet for him it barely mattered. Instead, she brought her own hand down, moved it underneath the fabric of her crotch as well, and lacing her fingers over his, she slowed his hand down, made him press harder, moved it to swirl around her clit, his heavy fingers divine pressure, and she keened.

When he got the rhythm, it felt better than her own hand, felt better than _anything_.

"Oh god," she keened, panting harshly. And after a while, she couldn't help it, bucked her hips against his hand, whined, empty and throbbing and pulsing and wet. So, so wet.

She was falling apart, the hero of Tokyo, hanging from a fence as her dark protector/ _maybe_ enemy fingered her. His fingers were firm and perfect, and he was panting harsh against her ear, his cheek pressed against her hair, his cock so very hard and twitching against her ass as he pressed it so insistently against her. The way he rubbed himself against her, hard and poking and making her bite her lip, rubbing himself against her in the rhythm of his fingers at her clit.

When she couldn't take it anymore, she slipped her own hand back to join, stroking shallow against her wet entrance. He whimpered with every wild buck of her hips against his fingers, against his cock, against the fence.

And when she was almost there - so, so, _close_ \- and his own body moved more frantically against her, he yanked his hand away. Instead, his hands moved to cover hers. One wet and one gloved, curled over hers into the fence as he moved his hard erection against her ass, the friction of the fabrics of their clothes so strangely stimulating as he moved and moved and moved, thrusting and erratic and wild, while her own fingers took over. She rubbed herself across the edge, her eyes on Tokyo Tower's orange glow just as the light went out, and she came.

Just when she came down from her high, it was his turn to fall. His lips shuddering against the crook of her neck, his body stiff as he came against her into the pristine fabric of his tuxedo, the mask chafing at her neck.

As the frenzy fell, her breathing slowed. Deeper and heavier, and so did his, puffed against her neck. His forehead hit her shoulder, his fingers flexed and curled tighter around hers in the fence, and his whole body moved with his breathing, pressed so deliciously hard against her.

His lips puckered. He pressed them warm against the crook of her neck, and she tilted her head so he could kiss up her throat, sighing. And he did. Slowly, oh-so tenderly.

"I'm sorry," he breathed when he reached her ear. Then, for a second, his teeth grazed the shell of it, his fingers flexed even tighter around hers, and she shuddered.

"For what?" she asked, bewildered, and her throat was completely raw, her voice hoarse. Wait, had she screamed while they did this? She didn't remember.

His hand left hers - the bare one. The breeze had already dried her wetness from his skin, and she almost mourned it. But he didn't remove it. Instead, he let it trail down her wrist, her forearm, caressing the sensitive skin at the crook of her elbow before hovering against the deep cut that went up the whole length of her arm, the skin around it blue and purple, no longer touching.

Ah.

"I'm so, so sorry. You have no idea how."

She frowned. Moved to turn, but he immediately pressed her back harder against the fence with his whole body. It rattled beneath their weight. Had it done that earlier, too? She hadn't noticed.

"No," he pleaded. "Please," his bare hand curled back against her fingers, his whole form curled around hers, "let me stay like this just a little longer."

So she just turned her head to the side, tiara clinking as it moved against the mesh, and she pressed her cheek, the side of her nose, against the crisp fabric of his shirt. The trinket hanging from his bow tie tangled in her hair. He always smelled so good. Soapy clean, mingled with the faint smell of roses. She breathed him in. She wanted to bottle his smell, keep it.

"It's not your fault," she said, frowning.

He moved his head, pressed his own cheek against the crown of her head. She was fully cocooned like this.

"It was my cane," he said, his voice all remorse and rumbling against her through the vibrations in his chest.

"It wasn't your hand. It was an accident," she argued against the fabric of his shirt and the warmth of him underneath.

"With my weapon."

She tightened her hold on his fingers. "So?"

He sighed. "I thought she'd got you for a second. With _my_ weapon."

"Venus was there," Usagi tried to argue.

" _I_ wasn't." He moved, his mouth and nose along her neck, pressed the words out against her skin, and inhaled like he was just as creepy as she was. "I was so worried. So worried I'd—that you—"

With that, he stroked his whole body against her with a full body sigh, and she closed her eyes to fully savor the unusual caress.

"I noticed," she whispered.

He exhaled harshly, pressed another kiss against her hair, much harder than any of those before.

"Nothing happened. I heal fast," she promised. And with another rattle and a press back against him, he let her go. "I promise I'm fine," she said, turning.

"Don't do that again."

"I can't promise that," she said, but when she looked up, she was surprised to find his eyes glassy and frantic underneath the mask.

He moved to cup her face. Stroked his gloved thumb down her cheekbone, his bare one against the dip of her chin, her lower lip. Stooped and hovered and brought himself down to her eye level.

She wanted to rip that terrifying mask away so badly.

"Please, please try," he begged.

She nodded, and his relief was palpable even though they both knew it was a lie.

"I'll try," she promised anyway.

With a sharp nod, his hold on her face tightened. And then he bent to press the tenderest kiss of the night against her tiara, the edge of his lip ever so lightly brushing her skin, and let it linger.

She'd still had her eyes closed when he let go, one thumb stroking down the apple of her cheek.

"It's hardest to let you go like this," he whispered. "When you're hurt. When it's my fault—"

She narrowed her eyes. "It's not—"

But he talked right over her. "When I can't—"

He broke off, and she pressed her eyes shut tighter when his voice turned so, so frustrated.

"You know, I could _help_ you. Underneath this transformation, I'm a fucking _doc—_ "

She whipped her eyes open in panic, whipped her hand up to press her gloved finger against his lips.

He stilled immediately. Everything in him dropped. The corners of his mouth, his shoulders, his whole frame. His eyes had never looked this sad. Or maybe they always did.

_What if we didn't? Keep it a secret?_

His whispered confession the first night they'd ever kissed hung in the air between them, unspoken. She hadn't answered him then, she didn't answer him now. And she felt absolutely despicable.

His exhale was shaky and final, and he nodded. Then he turned around and left.

* * *

It was a horrible feeling, sometimes. That longing. That aching. Wondering, as she slid her window along the frame and climbed into her dark room, where it was in the city that he was doing the same. If he was alone or had people waiting for him, and if she would ever get to see that place, and if it was all her fault when someday he might decide he didn't even want her to know these things after all.

And then she'd remember the tremble in his lips when she kissed him in stolen, secret moments after a battle. The way he'd never asked for more in the beginning, always let her lead, always let her decide. The raw, wanting look when she'd first taken them all the way, the way he looked so helplessly vulnerable as she drew him out, warm skin and pulsing veins and weeping head, kissed the tip to his broken whimper, calmly rolled the rubber down on him as he sat there with his arms pressed against the cement of the roof with his fingers balled into tight fists and his head thrown back. How he'd then shot up to clutch at her as she lifted herself up and sunk down on him all the way. And the way, nowadays, that this had all changed. When he'd started asking, too. When he'd started taking, too. When he begged for more. Pressing her against mesh-wire fences or pressing his lips against her clit, his hands so tight and desperate, holding her thighs spread open for him, keeping her in place.

At home, Tsukino Usagi rummaged with one arm in the messy first-aid kit in the bathroom that was only so messy because she was the one using it the most, and flinched when she dropped half its contents on the floor. Holding her breath, she listened intently for any sounds of her family, and exhaled in relief when no one seemed to rouse from the noise.

Her knees were red and knobbly as she sat on the tiles, put it all back in the kit while trying not to move her injured arm too much, and studiously didn't look up when the door creaked ever so slightly and the fluffiest black shadow padded across the tiles noiselessly on velvety paws.

Luna hopped up onto the cabinet, silently watched Usagi clean her wound with soft concern.

It looked worse than it was, really. It was already closing. It had been bleeding a lot, smeared down her arms, but it wasn't actually that deep, didn't need stitches. The bruising would take longer to fade than the actual cut.

She was fast about it, too. She'd been doing this long enough that this was routine, Ami's steps drilled into her by sheer repetition. After it was fairly clean, she flinched only a little as she dabbed the wool cotton ball pinched between her fingers against her wound to spread that horrible iodine gel.

But Luna's voice was worried. "Where were you?" she asked, not unkindly, perched on the edge of their porcelain sink.

"Watching the lights of Tokyo Tower go out on a rooftop," Usagi mumbled at her wound immediately, dabbed the iodine in her wound until the ball was too red and she picked another from the plastic sack to dab first into the gel and then against her skin. It wasn't a lie.

Luna tilted her head curiously, but didn't press. She simply waited.

And when only sad sighs came, Luna's eyes turned warm, and she hopped down to the floor and stroked her body against Usagi's leg in a caress so very much like a real cat's. It was comforting.

Sighing, Usagi looked up when she was done, the gauze pad absurdly long but secured against her skin, and watched her pale face in the mirror. Her mascara was smudged so late into the night. The longer she looked, the more abstract her features became.

"Usagi-chan?" Luna murmured in concern, and Usagi dragged her eyes away from her reflection to give her guardian a warm, reassuring smile. Reaching out, she scratched her soft little kitty head, and Luna's head butted against her hand in tender retribution.

With a weary sigh, she switched off the light in the bathroom. It went off with a little click, and Luna's paws became soundless once they moved from tile to carpet as she padded with her into her darkened room.

She changed in silence, and once her head hit the pillow, she blinked at the ceiling even as Luna's light weight settled and curled against her side above her purple comforter, warm and comforting and starting to rumble for her benefit.

Luna was long asleep when Usagi was still staring at the ceiling.

She'd been with Luna so long now. She trusted Luna. Luna trusted her.

She was half sure if she came clean, Luna wouldn't make them break up. Not anymore. Not after so long.

It still wouldn't be great. It still would be complicated. Luna would still be disappointed in her. She'd still be wary and concerned and take necessary precautions. They had no clue if they were enemies. They were after the same thing, for years now. But Luna would help, she was sure.

So what was holding her back, now that this excuse was gone?

She turned with a sigh, pushed her head underneath her pillow. As she curled it, she imagined curling it into his hand. Imagined what it would be like if he could lie beside her, sleeping as deeply as Luna.

Somehow, the image didn't fit. Tuxedo Mask in Tsukino Usagi's room.

And deep in her heart, she knew why.

_You're Sailor Moon. I don't believe you can ever fail._

His words echoed in her head. They'd been spoken in pride, spoken to reassure her and push her on, long before she'd ever pressed her lips against his shocked ones.

He thought so highly of her. But watching the shadows of her dark room, Sailor Moon wasn't who she was. She was Tsukino Usagi, on the brink of twenty-three, grown out of her childhood room on paper and yet so attached to the stuffed rabbits on her shelf. Tsukino Usagi, the klutz, the crybaby, the unladylike disaster, and her traitorous heart whispered the reason.

Tuxedo Mask was into Sailor Moon.

She was terrified he'd be disappointed with Tsukino Usagi underneath her.

And it was unfair. It was an awful thought. But… they just _might_ be enemies. They had no way to know. And even though Tuxedo Mask was ready to put all his faith in Sailor Moon and follow her should things ever get to the point where they _did_ find the Silver Crystal, when they _did_ find the princess, and ended up standing on opposing sides after all? Usagi trusted Tuxedo Mask to stand with Sailor Moon.

But would he trust a girl that much who had never gotten a full score on any test in all her life? A girl who still hadn't figured out all the different settings on a washing machine even though her Mama showed her weekly? Who fell asleep with her cheek clinging to whatever it was she'd meant to force herself to do, whose brain only worked in 'now' and 'not now' and was thus late for fucking everything? A messy, chaotic, brash, loud, emotional girl who got scolded by teachers and co-workers and Senshi alike, who still snuck out of her childhood room to go save the city and would do so for a while.

She wasn't so sure.

* * *

On December 24th, the date night of the year, Usagi browsed 7-11 and piled too much christmas cake into her basket, because she was adamant to get her sugar shock on and curl into bed with Luna and Netflix and cake.

With Shingo moved out of the house, Mama and Papa had installed regular date nights, so tonight of all nights she knew she'd have the house to herself. Minako was invited to a fancy party, Mako-chan was working, Ami had a date with Ryo, and Rei detested both christmas movies and christmas dates and was no good company on a day like this, so it would be her, the cakes, her cat, and a marathon of the Bachelor Japan. She was even kind of looking forward to it.

She knew she was hogging the cake aisle, two people had stopped close to her at the shelf, but this was an important choice and she refused to let herself be rushed. One of them had already wandered off, but just as she'd piled her seventh individually packaged cake slice gingerly into her basket, the other one started to speak, startling her.

"Exactly _how_ many of these are you planning to buy?" Chiba Mamoru's voice remarked with too much amusement, and she jumped, surprised. She would have dropped cake number eight if he hadn't reached out with those infuriatingly killer reflexes and caught it for her with a smirk.

He was standing there with nothing but a hot can of Boss coffee. In a chic black coat, black turtleneck sweater peeking out, one of those classic, checkered Burberry cashmere scarfs in burgundy and beige loose around the collar of his coat. All of him in pristine, dry condition, even though it had snowed outside all day. He wore frigging _leather_ gloves. He looked like he belonged in an ad, not in a conbini, that teasing smile forever on his lips.

"What if I buy all of them," she said with a huff, and inspected two identical vanilla and strawberry cream Santa cakes carefully in order to pick the superior one among the two.

He did that little huff sound that she knew well. She knew that when she'd look, he'd be smiling at her fondly even as he shook his head.

On a whim, she reached for the tiramisu cake. The only cake in their collection she never bought for herself. "Here," she said, and handed it to him. He took it reflexively. "You'll love that one. It's all coffee and dark chocolate."

He eyed it strangely. But to her surprise, he didn't put it back. He did follow her across the small space, stood beside her as she pulled a tin of cocoa from the shelf first, then went to the end of the shop second, and pulled open one of the fridges.

"So how's that secretary job going?" he asked conversationally.

She flinched, threw him a look through the clear fridge door, and sighed before she reached for the big bottle of Calpis. "I got fired," she mumbled towards the rows of bottles.

"Oh," he said.

She shrugged. Shut the fridge to the dull rattling sound of the silicone strip reconnecting to the metal frame. "Yeah," she sighed. "Merry Christmas, I guess."

He looked at her evenly, undecipheringly.

He only spoke again when they were standing in line at the till, him right behind her in the rather long queue. Lots of mothers with their excited children, holding cake like her, a few salarymen and their bento boxes. A bored teenager in a thick hoodie jacket over her school uniform tapping away on her phone, a basket dangling from the crook of her elbow.

"So where is that boyfriend of yours on an occasion like this, to cheer you up?" Mamoru asked rather quietly, rather monotone, behind her.

Her shoulders stiffened up. Bristling. "Who says I'm not meeting him," she said, not looking back at him. But she heard him shift.

"Are you?" he asked.

She sighed hard and deep, shoulders slumping. "No."

She looked down at her basket full of christmas cake. It was her own fault she would not be sharing it with him. She knew that.

She fought the dejected frown vehemently.

"You should be treated better," Mamoru said. It sounded kind of hard, and because of that, she finally turned around, shaking her head even as they moved forward a little in the queue.

"It's not like that," she said, meeting his gaze. "He's amazing."

His answering look was doubtful condescension and it made her bristle again. All, 'yeah right, I'm sure he's Prince Charming.'

"And yet you're alone today?" he said, gaze dark.

She rolled her eyes. He was being a jerk. A kind of judgemental one.

"He better have a good reason," Mamoru went on, glowering.

Usagi rolled her eyes at him in that big, exaggerated way and he gave her that exasperated look in return that she could paint in her sleep. A nonverbal dance they'd perfected for years.

He still poked her in the shoulder when it was her turn at the till and she'd missed it. She jerked forward, scurrying along to the kindly smiling cashier.

And then they stood outside in the puffy snow. Her with her powder-pink wool mittens and her 7-11 plastic bags, him with a responsible, graphite colored tote bag he'd produced from seemingly nowhere, ready to carry home unexpected tiramisu cake purchases.

But hovering, he turned back after they'd already said their goodbyes. "Hey…" he called back towards her. "Want to hang out?"

She blinked. Curled up her lips for a tease. "What, not having a hot date, either?"

But his face suddenly morphed into genuine, forlorn melancholy that punched into her heart. "No, sadly not," he said with a dejected shrug.

She started. Looked up at him perhaps a bit too intently, but his eyes endured her heavy, probing gaze as if it didn't bother him at all. "What would we even do?" she eventually mumbled.

His lips quirked up on one side, and his gaze swept over the white street, the white tipped awnings. It was meant to be a joke, she knew. "Build a snowman?" he suggested with a snort.

But everything in her lit _up_ , the excitement bubbling to the surface so hard it made her squeak and forget everything else. He blinked at her in utterly amused surprise, but his own lips slowly started to stretch wide as he took in her reaction in that intense way Chiba Mamoru always studied all her reactions.

He laughed. Such a beautiful sound. "Come on, then," he grinned, and nodded his head in the general direction of god-knows-where.

* * *

God-knows-where turned out to be Arisugawa-No-Miya Park. She'd flushed at the fact that their bags were parked on a bench where she'd had sex before, and snorted at the way he went about this project all strategic and planned like the nerd he was, rolling and rolling and rolling a ball in tracks around the edge of the fountain - out of service for the winter, the clocktower topped with snow in a way it looked like it had a little hood of whipped cream - until it was big and dense enough to be a base, while she just punched snow together in a big pile. It quickly became apparent they were building two snowmen instead of one, and it had turned into a competition. His was darn accurate.

Her fingers were numb by the time she'd installed a head, her wool mittens soaked through and a bit of pink color having bled into her snowman (they'd been cheap, ok?!) Next to her, Mamoru was attaching two round balls to the front of his snowman, carefully working, and she snorted at him.

"So, yours is a snow _woman_ , I take it?" she giggled at the perfectly circular round snow tits.

"Yup," he said, and then cursed when one dropped down again and split like a powdery coconut.

She was punching snow back against her base that had dropped off when he was done with stay-in-place snow boobs, and was moving on to place two round snowballs on either side of his snow woman's head. Snowballs suspiciously Odango-shaped. Only more apparent when he started to strategically attach what looked like long streamers of snow-hair molded like a clinking snake against the contours of his snow woman.

"Wait," she called, appalled. "Is this supposed to be _me_?"

He threw her an amused look. " _No_ ," he said, that entertained smile playing around his lips again, and for a while she didn't believe him, sending his artwork suspicious glances as he worked.

Except then she got it, when he took a small branch to use as a carving stick, and traced a tiara in the snow, two globes into the odangos.

He was building a Sailor Moon snow woman.

The realisation puckered in her heart.

Frowning at her own now suddenly so boring snowman, she nodded sharply, and went to gather more snow. She had to climb into the base of the fountain for it - they'd cleared all the snow off the ground around them already, and now it was either fountain or bushes. He laughed at her when he saw her start rolling a small ball around in the snow in his technique now, but wisely didn't comment.

But when she was done with her top hat and smiled fondly at it, before stealing his stick to trace a mask, he'd faltered and watched her in silence.

She threw him a look, but started to build a bow tie out of leaves, pressed a tiny pine cone beneath to stand in for his fancy trinket, then attempted to attach a cape, which was fucking hard, and made her curse a lot.

He'd finished long before her. His Sailor Moon had a skirt and everything, yellow leaves artfully woven into her hair, red leaves for a bow at her front and back. It was kind of an infuriating masterpiece. Meanwhile, her Tuxedo Mask looked a little droopy and sad, and yet, when he was done and she was not, he was wordlessly helping her trace a cape. And _man_ was he better at this than her.

In the end, Usagi added the finishing touches. Traced two sets of lips and two sets of rosy cheeks with her color-bleeding mittens, and for once, she was pleased with her handiwork. It looked cute.

But then they were done, and it was bitterly cold and she was wet and frozen, but when she found his kind smile and the way he so tenderly looked at their combined work, she didn't want to go.

"Are you a fan?" she asked him, pointedly looking where he looked, the Sailor Moon snow woman.

His smile was so fond it did things to her. "The biggest," he said with the cutest, sweetest, most sheepish little tilt of his head, as if he was confessing a deep secret.

It left her in a weird state of turmoiling emotions she couldn't pinpoint. But when he turned to her, looking at their bags, knowing he was about to say something, perhaps leave, she rushed to speak instead.

"Let's build a snow dome," she rushed out, and his smile twitched.

"What?" he asked, amused.

"To sit in! Like in Terrace House!" she clarified, and his eyebrow turned up. Obviously she knew he would never be caught dead watching Terrace House, so she clarified. "Like in the countryside. Like an igloo."

He tilted his head at her.

"We can put it directly opposite of our snowmen. To watch them a little longer. While they last, and all."

He snorted, but lifted his hands in a gesture all 'sure, whatever,' and together they did now have to venture into the bushes after all.

The branches attacked her and she was wetter afterwards than ever before, but the snow was thick and heavy and there was a whole damn lot of it, and this time she didn't argue. Mamoru's rolling technique, joint effort. Rolling, rolling, rolling it across the soil.

"What do you like about Sailor Moon," she asked eventually, looking at the snow and not at him, and the way the ball (as high as her knees now) rolled across the snow, pushed by both their gloved hands.

He was silent for a little while, obviously mulling over his answer.

"She's the best person I could ever imagine," he eventually said.

It hit her, and kind of not in a good way. Because she knew for a fact he did not think this about _her_.

It hit way too close to home. Something screamed at her to ask for more. To ask in what way. To dissect every last expectation.

But she was terrified of the answer, and so she didn't.

But he'd stilled. Noticing something was up with her, because Chiba Mamoru was a perceptive guy who always watched her too intently.

She shook her head, pushed at the snowball, and on they went.

"Tell me something," she said, rolling, aware of the fact her voice sounded a little croaky. But she needed a distraction from her thoughts.

"About what?" he asked, tone neutral but his eyes intense and watchful. His leather gloves trailed over the snow like he was caressing it even when his eyes weren't on it at all.

She shrugged awkwardly, brushed her wayward hair from her face. "I don't know. Something happy. A story."

With that, his lips quirked up. That handsome flirty look that was not flirting at all, just his normal tease. And also, how did she look like someone had put her into a blizzard and then left her out to dry, hair fuzzed out and damp all over, and his stupid scarf was still that elegant effortless thrown-over-the-shoulder look with no hair out of place?

"You want me to tell you a _story_?" he asked, amused. "Like, what? A fairy tale?"

She threw him his signature Odango Atama-reaction look, a little mocking, a little irritation, a little tongue. He just lifted his eyebrows, clearly entertained.

"So what?" she huffed, frustrated. "I want it. Something with adventure and no grown-up stuff."

His smile was warm and infuriating and very Mamoru. "So you want Peter Pan?" he joked.

She rolled her eyes theatrically, and pushed the ball at him a little harder (he _oof-ed_ with a laugh). "Well, _maybe_ ," she muttered.

He threw her a look, rolled the ball backwards in a way that navigated around a bush. "Peter Pan is a horrible story."

"Excuse me?"

"Kidnapped children who have to stay as kids forever, but never get to see their parents again?" he said with a pointed frown and she frowned right back.

"That's the most horrible interpretation of it I've ever heard," Usagi said, horrified. The snowball rolled into a fresh batch of high snow, crunching across the ground, narrowly wedged between a line of bushes, but growing quicker and quicker. She wriggled at the branches a little, and it rained down even more snow.

He shrugged.

"You know there's also the interpretation where all the children all died in the war and Peter Pan collected them all and brought them into heaven," she said, pushing her numb hands against the snowball. It reached higher than her belly now.

"And that's supposed to be better?" he chuckled. "There's _also_ the interpretation where Peter brainwashed them all, removing all their memories so they would want to stay young and brainwashed forever, and Hook was the only lost boy who managed to break free from Peter's spell, grew up, and now tries to save all the other kids."

" _Wow_ , that's sinister."

He snorted, his fringe shaking across his forehead, and he navigated the snowball down a trail between the bushes, walking backwards in a way as if he had eyes back there or something. She would have walked straight into a bush.

Usagi huffed, rolling. "What's so bad about not being good at all that adulting stuff? Wanting to escape all those expectations?" she said after a little while. "I would love to run from it, too, sometimes," she confessed.

Immediately, Mamoru's piercing look was back on her. That tilted head, and she pressed her lips together in discomfort.

And with another shake of the leaves, they were back out of the bushes, behind the fountain, behind her naughty bench, the snowball reaching her sternum. It was _giant_.

Mamoru clapped a bit of powdery dusting of snow off his coat, making it infuriatingly pristine again.

"So, how do you want to do that?" he asked. And somehow, Usagi was sure he meant the running from expectations, but she pretended to misunderstand.

"We'll just carve it out," she said with a decisive little nod. "Make a little seat inside and all."

Mamoru's eyes scrunched together, but he didn't press.

Rolling the giant snowball across from Snow Moon and Snow Mask, she kicked at it a little, making it collapse ever so slightly, then she knelt and began to dig. Her tights were super thick, her miniskirt lined with press-on heat packs. But she was wet, and kneeling in the snow was probably not the best idea, and yet she ignored it and dug her numb fingers and wet pink mittens inside, starting to carve it out.

Mamoru's form was dark and heavy beside her as he knelt right next to her. So close their sides touched, his coat to her jacket, his leather-gloved fingers digging beside hers.

"So, are you looking for a new job?" he asked, probing carefully. Apparently, her comment didn't leave him alone.

At least this was semi-safe. She nodded.

"Something caught your eye, yet?" he asked carefully, choosing his words.

She wrinkled her nose, dug, and shoved the snow to the side. The hole in it was quickly forming. "I'm doing something on the side that's kinda fun. You know, to pay the bills and save up a little to move out eventually."

She felt his look at her profile.

"Oh?"

When she did look, he was carefully pressing his hands against the sides of their igloo. Attempting to keep it sturdy as she gutted it.

"Don't laugh, please?" she mumbled.

He smirked. Patted the snow against the forming walls instead of digging it out. "Oh, I wouldn't _dare_."

Aggravated at his look, she fisted the snow she was digging out, and threw it at him. He laughed, lifting his arms. The snow powdered off his sleeve.

"What is it?" he chuckled, dusting himself off with that smirk in his eyes.

She felt her cheeks heat and it was kind of tingling against her cold, cold face, and yet his intense attention remained on her even as he carved them a seat and she mutilated it. She could feel his eyes.

"Do you know like, these people with the fake weddings? And the fake wedding guests and fake brides and stuff? For like, pictures for social media and event dates and promotions and stuff?"

Of _course_ , he looked horrified, and she huffed, then snorted.

"Wait what," he cried. "You like, fake _marry_ people?"

She dug a little more, but this time pushed it back, patting against the little tiny narrow seat he was forming. "So far I've only gone on fake-vacation with people, and took fake friend and family pictures. But yeah, I think I'd love to fake marry someone."

He took a beat. Patted snow against the wall while holding his arm out and around to pat it from both sides. "That's kinda sad," he said.

She threw him a look.

"The needing to hire such a thing," he defended immediately at her look. "Not you doing it. I think you'd have fun with it."

"I do, actually," she said, smiling sheepishly. "And I think I like helping people who feel that lonely."

He grew silent. But when she turned to him, he smiled. It was genuine, but a little melancholy, and she frowned.

He turned back to their snow igloo. "Does it at least pay well?"

She rubbed her hands against the seat like he was doing. It did look like a seat now. And also, now that there was an 'inside' inside of here, it protected them strangely well from the cold outside, even though she could barely feel her hands anymore.

"A lot better than some of my older jobs," she answered, and received a firm nod.

"So, what does your boyfriend think of you fake-marrying other people?"

The question had barely left his lips before it apparently turned her so sad that he directly picked up on it. Because his concerned, "Bad question?" shot out immediately afterwards.

She brushed her teeth across her chapped lip and frowned hard at the snow, patting on. "I haven't actually told anyone about the job yet."

A beat of silence.

"Why not?"

She sighed, moved a little weirdly, a little embarrassed, and kept patting. Didn't look him in the eye. "It's not exactly what people want for me. It's a silly job."

Another beat of silence.

"But you told me?"

At that, she did look up. Sent him a small smile, half of a tease. But he wasn't teasing back. His look was dead serious. At least until she spoke.

"That's different," she informed him. "You ONLY expect crap from me."

Despite himself, it seemed, he laughed. A rumbling chuckle, and it couldn't have echoed off their little space, but it did, and it made her smile in return.

And he sat back on his haunches. Somehow, they were done. A tiny little snow dome igloo. It was narrow, but they could sit in it.

Turning was a little awkward. It was so narrow they had to sit in it pressed tightly together, and making a 180 required her to move her whole body against him. She blushed when he did the same.

But then there they sat. A little warmer in here, their exhales turning the walls to ice ever so slowly. Directly in front were Snow Mask and Snow Moon.

She was looking at the pretty cape on her misshapen snow boyfriend when Mamoru next spoke.

"Why haven't you told him about the job?" he asked.

She turned to look him in the eye. His elbows were on his knees. Looking long and dangly as he wrapped his arms around them. He looked like a giant in a doll's house.

"I… don't tell him a lot of things about me," she said because it was true.

But he frowned. "Why?"

She didn't know why she was telling him these things, really. She didn't know why she always wanted to tell him things, in general. When did her high school nemesis become her confessor?

But she did. She told him. "I'm terrified he'll be disappointed. In me. Everything about me, really," she confessed, kneading her frozen hands.

He inhaled sharply. Shook his head hard. "Usagi, no."

But she pressed her lips together and fled the conversation. Slipping from their igloo, she walked to her bench, took both their bags.

He was watching her intently again when she wriggled back inside, pressed herself back into the narrow space next to him, slipped off her ice-clump gloves, and slowly unpacked all their cakes.

When they were all uncapped, she pulled her little pencil case of cutlery from the inside of her breast pocket and his eyebrows rose back along his forehead.

She shrugged. "Other people carry fancy sustainable coffee cups with them, I have cutlery in my pockets. I'm _always_ ready to eat," she said, and he laughed, and she extracted her one spoon, then held it out towards him.

He looked even more surprised than when she'd randomly pulled silverware from her clothes.

"Wait, what?" He was all incredulity. " _Tsukino Usagi_ is sharing food? With me?"

Well, it was Christmas Eve after all. She gave him a cheeky grin. "Maybe you deserve it today," she said, and pushed her shoulder against his a little, jostling him. "Ya know, one undatable person to another."

He laughed. That beautiful, amused, belting sound she only ever heard him make with her. Carefully, he slipped off his leather gloves and placed them in his lap.

She pointed at the cakes, and he dutifully, carefully, leaned forward and sliced her spoon into chocolate sponge and chocolate cream mousse perfection first.

His eyes widened a little in surprise when he slipped the spoon back from his mouth, and she beamed.

"Bûche de Noël," she informed him, then took the spoon from him. Her own way of stabbing the cake was much less careful and much less modest.

"That's a very fancy term," he remarked with a smirk as she opened her mouth wide and shovelled cake into it.

"I don't know much," she said with her mouth full, "but I do know my food lingo." She swallowed, dug the spoon in again. "It's my favorite. The sponge cake swirled with the soft chocolate mousse cream?"

She slipped her spoon back into her mouth.

"Better than the classic ones with the fresh strawberries?" he asked with a smile.

She licked the spoon clean, handed it back to him, and pointed at the next cake for him to try, the strawberry brûlée dome cake. "I love the classic ones," she answered. "But the conbinis don't have the freshest strawberries."

When he took his bite, he groaned in it, too, and Usagi smirked at him, all 'See?'.

"Only the Fujiya classic one is better than this," she said. "And Mako-chan's. But it's super expensive, so." She shrugged. "And I'm not forcing my friend to bake for me 24/7."

"You _don't_?" He laughed, and she poked him in the side. Then she pointed to the tiramisu cake she'd made him buy, and this time, when he ate, he fucking melted.

" _Excuse_ me?" he said. As if he were offended he hadn't known this perfection before, and it made her preen in pride.

Her eyes were all 'I told you so', and it was the best friggin' feeling.

She still made him lick the spoon clean first. She didn't want this coffee nonsense with her vanilla strawberry Santa.

"Mamoru?" she asked, decapitating Santa ruthlessly.

He turned to look at her, and she flinched a sheepish smile.

"Merry Christmas," she hushed.

The smile he gave her was perhaps the warmest he'd ever given her. "Merry Christmas, Usagi."

His cheeks were red and flushed from the cold, like red spots on a doll, and it was kind of adorable.

But when she passed him the spoon again, she brushed his hand. He recoiled heavily.

" _Fuck_ ," he cursed sharply, and she was about to inhale sharply to give him _shit_ for that reaction, but then he jump-grabbed at her hands and confused the hell out of her and started to rub and fuss until finally all the ' _oh_ , because they're _cold_ '-lightbulbs went off in her bewildered head… And also what the fuck _wow_ , how were _his_ hands so insanely _warm_?

"They're fucking blue," he cursed in his dirtiest scolding voice, his tone all 'why didn't you _say_ something,' and honestly, the difference in heat between their fingers felt almost painful when he wrapped his large hands around her small ones, rubbing them.

She blinked at his effort, utterly dumbfounded. At the way he brought them to his mouth and cupped his hands around them, blowing in that slow, deliberate way that puffed out his warm breath across her fingers.

It was… surprisingly sweet. It kind of flushed through her. It was _totally weird._

It was meant to lighten the mood, or maybe her awkward, undefinable, fluttering feelings. "If you think _that's_ bad, you should feel my feet," she awkwardly joked.

His glare was so quick and dirty the sounds died in her throat just as she'd uttered them.

"Right, then," he glowered, wrapped both her hands in one of his and reached with the other to start putting the plastic caps back on her cakes. "We're getting you home, then."

"Hey!" she called in protest, but really, she'd lost the war. He was muttering, slipping his own too-large gloves onto her hands with jerky, annoyed movements, giving her a lecture on the superiority of leather gloves over plastic as he dumped hers in the trash, all 'leather is _literally_ skin and warms with your body heat' with irritation in his voice and movements as he put her stuff back in her bag.

At one point, she started giggling ridiculously, and he glared at her even harder.

And he did walk her home. At least to their fork in the road.

And once again, he hovered. Called her back after their goodbyes.

"Usagi?" he called her back.

"Hm?" she turned back.

His cheeks were pink from the cold, his jaw tense, but his eyes sincere.

"Don't change."

Huh?

She rolled her eyes. "I'm a disaster," she threw back, "Your own words."

"You're a delightful disaster. Please don't ever change," he said, still that intense glower, and she recoiled this time. "Especially for someone else's expectations. No one's."

She felt inclined to give him her 'yeah, riiight', look. But it froze on her, perplexed.

He tilted his head, and shrugged. "Thank you for today," he said, and it was too confusingly genuine again.

And then he turned and left.

She stood staring after him too long, before she shook her head and walked home.

She ended up eating the rest of her cake in the tub, because no one was around to scold her and Luna couldn't care less. Felt the feeling return to her toes and frowned into the steam.

* * *

She started hard, when, two days later after the most random battle, Tuxedo Mask gingerly lifted her in that soft way he always touched her, and carried her to a place she knew well.

She'd expected his tongue in her mouth, maybe a chance to get to touch his bare skin. She'd missed him, she'd been dreaming of him, she wanted him. Had been distracted the whole battle because it had been too long. Because he'd turned her into someone who waited for battles to come so she could fuck her partner/maybe enemy/probably boyfriend.

But he didn't carry her away to have her way with her.

Arisugawa-no-Miya Park. On the roof of the Tokyo Metropolitan Library, exactly across from their fountain, their bench, and the new snow sculptured additions, he'd laid out a blanket, a thermos, and a christmas cake still boxed.

The expensive, classic Fujiya one.

She blinked hard at the coincidence, and he shifted almost awkwardly beside her. He held out his hand towards the spot almost sheepishly, and her eyes must have been big and round and incredulous.

"This is…" she started.

He shifted closer.

"It's amazing," she breathed, confused.

He laughed, relieved. And somehow, it sounded familiar.

"That's like, the best cake," she pointed out, kneeling on the soft, thick, green blanket.

"So I've been told," he said, held her gaze. Watched her.

She turned, looked around. It was freezing cold up here. Especially in a mini skirt with bare arms and legs.

Down there, from the spot he'd chosen to take her, you could see Snow Moon and Snow Mask, and she couldn't help but smile.

With a heavy swoosh of his cape, he sat right behind her, and relieved goosebumps ran along her skin when he shifted so close his body heat enveloped her, his chest pressing against her back intimately. She shivered, and with a flick of thick fabric, he wrapped his cape around her.

It was warm from his body, surprisingly soft, and she almost mewled.

She felt his low chuckle rumble against her back, his face move against her hair, and his arms wrapped tight around her.

It was utter bliss. She sat in a warm cocoon of the man she'd dreamed of since she was young, who, turns out, she could turn into a shuddering mess beneath her, who swooped her away to… to…

To this.

It was so sweet it choked her up. A Christmas date. He tried to give her a Christmas date.

It flushed through her. Filled her heart. Kinda turned her on. Made her trail her hand down his leg slowly and wonder how long it would take him to react.

But she also wondered how long he'd had this prepared. If he'd, had there been a battle earlier in the week, had had this ready, too. How many days had he been waiting for this?

It made her heart speed up, and kind of also terrified her. Not because she didn't want it. Not at all. Not in the least. She wanted this so very badly.

But what were the chances that she could keep this if she was too terrified to show him who she was?

Her eyes flicked back to Snow Moon and Snow Mask. The igloo had been absolutely destroyed, no trace of it left, but those two were almost untouched.

"Have you seen those?" she pointed with her chin, voice cracking weirdly.

Weirdly, his voice sounded almost as sheepish as hers. "I have, yes." He drew her closer to his chest still, and she sat completely between his legs.

She pressed back against him as hard as she could, eyes fixed on her crappy Snow Tux next to Mamoru's shiny perfect version of his idol, Sailor Moon.

How would he react? Mamoru and Tuxedo Mask. How would either of them ever react if they found out Sailor Moon was a college drop-out who'd ate nothing but enormous amounts of christmas cake and the occasional KFC for every meal for the last few days while she was alone for once?

Tuxedo Mask was apparently thinking something similar. His chest was beating hard, she could feel it thumping against her back. His arms around her super tight.

"What would you do?" he whispered against her hair.

She frowned.

"If we could be together for real?" he clarified, voice thick.

Her own heart sped up. There was this awful voice in her head that asked herself if she could pretend to be someone more responsible. Like she had tried for that job with her father's newspaper.

It was so fucking terrifying, the thought. Tuxedo Mask was the best man she knew. A true hero. Going nuts when she was hurt. Touching her like she was a gift from fate and he was undeserving of her. He was smart, drop-dead-gorgeous, strategic, reliable. He _deserved_ the Sailor Moon he imagined. She _wanted_ a woman like that for him. She wanted to _be_ a woman like that for him.

She wasn't, though. Not even in a self-deprecating way. She had lots of other things going for her. She could make people smile. She made a killer curry rice, her only good dish. She could cheer someone on and believe in them. She could sleep in any situation, anytime. She could give a good pep-talk. She could believe in the good in others, find something positive in most situations.

But she was also an acquired taste, kind of. There were few people in her life who hadn't been disappointed in her throughout her life. There wasn't a single person who was permanently in her life who hadn't been disappointed in her at least a number of times and told her so. Be it the fact she could never remember how to put on a kimono even though Rei had shown her a thousand times, or Ami's patient but dispiriting look when Usagi failed a test she'd taken hours of time out of her busy schedule to tutor her for. Luna and Artemis's scolding lectures, especially when she was younger, almost any other day. Her Mama refusing to let her in the house because of her abysmal grades. Shingo too embarrassed of her to introduce her to his friends. Her friends making excuses for her, telling people they'll like her if they only gave her a chance to get to know her a little better.

She didn't want this man of all men to be disappointed in who she was. She wouldn't be able to take it.

She wanted to be with him. She wanted him to keep being this proud of her. She wanted him to keep looking at her like that. She wanted to wake up with him in the mornings and jump his fucking bones in sleep-warm sheets and then go for an enourmous breakfast afterwards, and she wanted him to not care if she sucked at time management and finishing what she started, and keep kissing her like that even if her fancy new coat would forever be spotted with coffee because she didn't even know where the next dry-cleaner _was_.

So yeah, if they could be together for real? What would she do?

But because the silence had stretched too long, and she couldn't speak this truth into existence because it wasn't only her heart at stake here, but also a lot more, she ventured somewhere safe instead, somewhere practiced, somewhere more light.

"Have sex in a warm bed," she finally said, shivering. Because, well, it was _also_ the truth.

He laughed. A huffing sound that moved her hair.

She sighed, wrapped herself against him more, and shivered.

His laugh died and stretched into silence instead.

She almost fell when he got up so abruptly. The wind rustling his hair underneath that top hat. Blinked in confusion when he held his gloved hand out for her, frowning.

"C'mon," he said, and curled his fingers at her.

Her heart started hammering. What?

"What about the cake?" she stalled.

"I'll buy you another one," he said quite dryly. "Come on."

Her heart beat hard. Ba-dump, ba-dump, against her ribcage. She _knew_ what was gonna happen. She _wanted_ it. She was terrified of it.

"Where are we going?"

"To have sex in a warm bed," he said calmly, still holding out his hand for her.

Her eyes widened. And yet, she took his hand. Because she would always take his hand.

With one swooping motion, he lifted her. Soft gloves around her goosebump-ed knees, the other curled around her midriff, her arms settling around his shoulders in a movement so routine, so practiced, so natural it made her heart ache.

"But… where," she gasped when he jumped, her stomach sinking with the motion of soaring through the air as he lifted off the roof with her in his arms and jumped right off the side of the building.

"My place," he said.

She almost choked. Clutched his lapels.

"No," she begged.

He stopped. Stilled in the snow near her Snow Tux. "Why not?" he asked, looking down.

She curled her gloved hands into his jacket, kneading it nervously, and her voice rose in agitation. "I'll see where you'll live, I'll figure you out! We'll—"

He gave her a hard long look. Not unkind, but searching. "What if I don't mind if you figure me out?" he asked quietly, vulnerable.

Her whole form turned into one big whimper, and in answer, he exhaled hard, eyes shimmering.

He wasn't moving. His fingers twitched around her knees.

"Do you not want to?" he asked under his breath, his eyes studying her intensely.

Her heart _hurt_.

"I want nothing more," she whispered, confessing, barely audible.

But with that, he moved. Jumped.

Sailor Moon shrieked.

"Close your eyes, then" he said. "I'll make sure you won't see, if that's what you want."

She squeezed her eyes shut immediately and it caused his breath to stutter in despair.

But soon after - so _soon_ , he lived so _close_! - he touched ground. The shifting of his body, leaning, dipping her. The slide of a balcony door, the changing sound as he left Tokyo behind and put her down in his home. She kept her eyes firmly shut, perhaps even harder now, and heard him sigh.

The same sound again, a door shutting, and suddenly, it was completely silent except for his harsh breathing and hers.

"Wait here," he whispered in the silence.

The rushing sound of something sliding against a rail. She frowned. Curtains? The swish of his cape as he moved around her, then that same sound again. Behind her eyelids, her vision turned black.

She felt his return as goosebumps on her skin, even though it was no longer cold.

Then she felt his breath on her face.

"You can open your eyes, now," he said. Softly now.

And yet she still whimpered.

"I promise." His voice was a beg. "It's as dark as it can be in here."

To a hammering heart, she opened her eyes. And yes. Yes, it was pitch black, all curtains drawn. He was nothing more than a silhouette.

She stared, exhaling harshly. He was right here. She was in his home, somewhere in _Azabujuban_. This could be— _They_ could be—

To the rushing sound of her own blood in her ears, she lifted trembling fingers to his face. And for the first time ever, she brought her eyes to his mask. He held his breath.

She traced it first. White as it was, it was the lightest thing she could see. Behind it lay only shadow and it painted movement. Not knowing what he looked like, there was no chance she could figure it out in the pitch dark.

She tightened her grip and lifted it off.

His lips opened with his relieved whimper, and it broke her.

Her hands were rushed, frantic. She ripped off his hat, threw it across the room. Something knocked down somewhere, but neither of them reacted. Her hands pulled at his jacket, frustrated.

And she couldn't believe her own ears for what she said next.

"Detransform," she begged.

He stilled. "Are you sure?" he whispered.

It was stupid. It was dangerous. She knew of course that this was different. Even if she took off his mask in costume, ever, she was relatively sure that the magic would still protect him. Chances were high that she would still not be able to truly see him. But detransformed? One flash of light, one car driving by outside in an angle that it peaked through the curtains after all...

But she nodded, closed her eyes just for a moment.

There was no flash of light, just a shimmer of magic that she _felt_ , but she took no chances. When she touched him next, however, she touched the heavy fabric of a winter coat. An incredibly soft scarf hanging from it.

She frowned. "You weren't supposed to be wearing _more_ ," she huffed in annoyance, tugging, and he barked out a laugh.

He shimmied out of the jacket immediately, hopping and moving and shaking it off, and she groaned in an utterly unladylike way when she moved her hand beneath whatever sweater he was wearing, and there was warm, bare skin shivering underneath her gloves. She ripped at it like a madwoman, over his head and away, and he let it all happen. And when she trailed her lips against his chest, against the rise and fall of pectoral muscles, he was shivering all over. His hands ran through the long streamers of her hair, tugging ever so lightly, and it lifted her mouth off his chest and up towards his face.

It was hard kissing him in the dark. She missed his mouth, frantic and wild, until his hands messily disentangled from her hair and grabbed her chin, strands of her hair still pressed between her face and his hand. And then his tongue was firmly in her mouth, stroking deep and wet and slow against hers, and it made her shudder all over, too.

Moving her hands down his form blindly, he grunted in pain against her when she found her goal but hit too hard, but he never stopped kissing her back, even when her hands fumbled because fuck damn removing someone else's belt in the dark with gloves on was a fucking test of skills right there, and she only managed it when his own hands moved between them to help.

With a whipping sound as she ripped it from his pants, it finally came free, and with his hands moving between them, and the sound of a zipper going down, they fell from his hips, and he kicked them off his legs.

Stepping back, his lips disconnected from hers with the softest, lewdest little suction sound, but she had to see.

He was nothing more than a silhouette, just a man in shadows. _Her_ man in shadows. And he was standing there, panting harshly in his underwear - the tight dark boxer briefs kind, something like that - and nothing more. No mask. _No mask._

Waiting for her to move.

She did. Moved close, inhaled his skin. Soapy clean, no roses this time. This was just him.

He shivered.

Usagi lifted her hand, drew Sailor Moon's gloved index finger slowly from his sternum down his chest, his belly. She didn't feel it through the glove, not really. Didn't see it, not at all. A tiny dip that must have been his navel. A rise, and then there was his hard erection. _That_ , she could feel.

His breath was shuddering, and yet he waited.

She drew both hands into his underwear and tugged it slow, slow, slow down his legs, kneeling. And when she looked back up, she saw his shivering, trembling body, the jut of a cock near her face.

She leaned forward, exhaling. Rubbed her cheek against it, her glove catching it, and he cried out a soft whimper before she stood up again.

His whole body was shaking, and it affected her in ways that spread and tingled deep down her spine, pooled in her belly and between her thighs.

When he moved, it was his hands. With trembling fingers, he grabbed one of her hands, and one by one, he tugged at every finger of her glove, pulling until he could slip it from her. Then he took her other hand and did the same, until her hands were bare.

A naked man in the dark with the woman he desired, leading her bare hands to his naked body, she'd have expected him to draw her touch to his cock. And yet, curling one of her hands with his, he brought it to his face.

Her breath stuttered, her hands trapped against his larger one against his high cheek, and when she moved her thumb to trail the pad of her finger along his cheekbone, his eyelid, skin she had never touched before because there'd always been that stupid mask, he sighed, moaning tonelessly, and curled his face into her touch.

It broke her heart and made her fall in love all over again.

There was stubble on his chin, his cheeks. His eyebrows were thick and full, the crease between his brow rigid and deep, and his own hand so, so heavy over hers, pressing.

"I love you," she whispered.

He gasped, shuddering. She'd never dared say that before.

And then his own hands were on her face, and then his lips. Trailing her eyelids, her cheekbones, her nose, her temple, her cupid's bow, the corner of her lips, her mouth. His tongue back against hers, careful and slow and moaning.

And then he slowly walked her backwards, until the back of her knees hit something soft, and his lips disconnected from hers softly, preciously.

"The bed is behind you," he whispered.

She licked her lips, stepped aside, and pushed him on it. His silhouette bounced, he gasped, and the sound of a creaking mattress filled the room along with his shudders.

She wanted to see this so badly. Her naked man with the face she didn't know, that stranger she loved and trusted so completely, looking up at her in the shadows as Sailor Moon climbed over him, straddling him. She wanted to see his face so very badly, the look in his eyes.

But she only had his sounds and his touch. Only had the way his breath came out garbled when she sat down directly over his cock, grinding her fuku against him. Only had the way his fingers twitched and dug into her ass so desperately, how his thighs tensed and shook underneath her, overwhelmed and hard.

Only had the way he clawed his hands into her so hard when she rolled her hips over him, again and again, working herself up on his cock as she moved it along her crotch, the way he hissed and babbled and whimpered brokenly, desperately.

She knew those sounds. She knew them so, so well. Had heard them pressed against her ear, her chest, her mouth, her hair. She could hear when he was struggling, getting close. Could feel by the way he pressed his hips down far to reduce friction, trying not to come.

And then she stilled, and panted harshly.

He was looking up at her. She couldn't see his eyes, the shadows were too deep, but her eyes had adjusted just enough to the dark to see the curve of his nose, the movement in his face, his bare shoulders against dark sheets.

Breathing deeply, pressed against his cock tightly, she moved and covered his eyes.

He jumped at her touch. Jumped even more when he felt the shimmer of her detransformation rippling against his skin.

It was stupid. It was pitch dark. She couldn't see him. He wouldn't be able to see her either. And yet she was too terrified. Because what if he _could_?

The shudder in his breath broke when he touched her again, and there were no boots, no tight fuku, just loose pj shorts with lemons on them and short sleeved pajama top to match, buttoned in the front.

His voice broke, his hands moved around her bare calf so tight it almost hurt.

"Hi," he whispered into the dark, his breath puffing against her wrist. Her palm still covering his eyes.

"Hi," she whispered back, and her voice broke, too.

His breathing stuttered when he moved his hands carefully, tenderly up her leg, underneath the hem of her loose shorts to dance his fingertips against the sensitive skin of her bare ass underneath.

"You're wearing less than I did," he said breathlessly, but his voice was a grin.

She chuckled.

"I promise I'll keep my eyes closed," he said after a beat.

And she could have cried in gratitude for him. With a beating heart, she removed her hand.

He was still hard beneath her. She could feel every contour of his cock now, jutting hard against her, against the thin, thin fabric, moving. And yet he moved almost calmly. At least it could have been mistaken for calmness, if it weren't for the tremor in his touch.

"Can I touch you?" he hushed into the dark.

She frowned. But of course he couldn't see. "Of course," she said. Incredulous, perplexed, and too loud in the hush of darkness.

But he shuddered, and then his hands moved up and underneath the soft viscose fabric of her top, gentle, tender fingers trailing up her skin. Stroking featherlight underneath the crease of her breast, brushing ever so faintly along her nipple.

It was too good, too little, and she pressed her knees against his thighs, pressed her crotch against his cock, contorted her whole body and yanked her top over her head in one fluid movement so sudden and hurried he groaned. Grabbed her boob harder, his thumb deeper, his other hand into her ass and his cock up against her, his hips lifting her, head thrown back as he groaned louder than she ever heard him groan before.

"Do you have a condom?" she gasped in a way-too-wanton way, but he turned on his bed so fast she almost fell off him and shrieked.

"Sorry," he whisper-shouted, horrified, and his hand blindly fumbled around what must be a nightstand by his bed. Something crashed and fell (a plant?) and he cursed. But the sound of wood and swishing items later, and he ripped at something in the dark.

Then he turned back around, square package slapped onto his belly, and she _knew_ his eyes were closed even though she couldn't see.

"I can't put it on without looking," he whispered, and held it out instead.

She exhaled. He was so fucking trusting. And so, it was a little like their first time. She knelt, pushed her pj shorts down her legs, then stepped out of them. And sitting down on him again, her wet sex now naked and directly at his bare cock, he exhaled all his breath in one surprised whoosh.

She fumbled in the dark, ripping at the foil packaging, tried to figure out in the pitch black which way to roll it down. But all the while, her hips moved along his bare length, her clit gliding down his shaft, his hands digging tight and firm into her thighs, and _god_ it felt so good, so, so bloody good, just one buck lower and he could move _inside_ and—

She finally figured it out, pinched the top, lifted her butt, and grabbed his cock.

He hissed through his teeth when she rolled it on him, then moaned a sound so broken and guttural it stuttered and died when she sunk down on him ever so slowly, it was the most erotic sound in the world.

And then she sat on him, his head thrown back, his thighs so tense they lifted her right with him off the bed, and he breathed harshly through his nose, fisting the sheets around her, the fabric gliding underneath her knees where he pulled it away.

She'd only sat down on him, and he'd almost come. It made her so fucking wet she couldn't breathe.

And so she started rocking. Forward and back instead of up and down, moving her clit along his skin as he whimpered and cried out and made the best fucking sounds she'd ever heard. Rocking, rocking, rocking until her thighs burned and she collapsed on him, her breasts against his chest. His arms flung around her shoulders, his hands into her hair, and he pressed her against his shoulder in the tightest hug, and began to jut his hips upward to meet her in the middle.

She eventually came with his hair in her mouth and her face pressed against the side of his head, in the tightest embrace she'd ever known, his cock sliding in and out of her slowly, languidly in a way that felt almost like a rocking dance. It was beautiful. It was heartbreaking. She wanted to see him.

Instead, she felt him everywhere. Hands and thighs and cock and hair and his stuttering breath against her face, his fingertips brushing away the fringe of her hair and his lips puckering exhausted kisses wherever he reached, long after he was flaccid and soggy beneath her.

It was much later, when her breath had calmed down and her sweat had cooled on her skin and he was breathing calmly beneath her, stroking her hair over and over, that she broke the silence. Mumbling against his skin.

"What if I fall asleep?" she whispered, concerned.

"Then we'll wake up in the morning," he whispered back, his palm heavy on the back of her head, his cheek rubbing against her hair.

Her hands curled in his hair. "We can't."

He exhaled hard, his hand jumped, and then the silence stretched.

But his next words would break the spell.

"What would be so horrible if you knew who I am?" he whispered into the silent room, heavy and loaded.

Her hand twitched against his hair, and her heartbeat picked up in panic.

But she finally managed to speak the truth.

"It's not knowing who you are. It's you knowing who I really am," she confessed.

But he got it so horribly, horribly wrong.

His whole body turned hard beneath her.

"Oh," he said.

She froze. Her heartbeat was starting to hammer so hard he must have felt it against his chest.

His next words didn't help. They were no longer a whisper.

"You don't trust me? After all this?" he asked. His voice shook. _Broke_. "You still think I could be your enemy? That I could, what, fight you? Be against you? Do you really think I—"

She pushed off of him. "No! That's not it! I—"

"Well, what is it then?"

She exhaled harshly.

He turned in the dark, pushed away from her—

"No!" she said again.

—And then he got up, back turned to her. And with another shimmer of the air, the cape was back, the top hat, the mask.

"Transform," he said. It sounded so utterly defeated.

"Tuxedo Ma—"

"Transform," he interrupted her.

Panicking, she did. He felt it the second she was finished, because he always did, turned around, and lifted her wordlessly.

She panicked. Full on. About everything. About his assumptions, about the hurt her stupid insecurities had caused, about her silly lemon pajamas still strewn somewhere in this dark room, about to be left behind as incriminating evidence for her silly character. She started shaking all over.

The slide of the balcony door sounded so much louder than it had before, and she scrunched her eyes shut.

He left her on a random rooftop barely a minute later. Too close.

He left without looking back, and she sobbed so hard it choked her.

* * *


	2. Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here you go, last chapter directly to go! I'm not gonna lie, I really like this story. I'm strongly passionate about the needed normalisation of masculine platonic affection in media and society, because men can be super fucking nice without ulterior motives because of course they friggin can, gender equality for all lol. ANYWAY, ramble out, I hope you have fun with the rest. I'm STILL DEEPLY SUPER-DUPER GRATEFUL for Antigone2 and Daikon sacrificing their time for me on such short notice to cheer me on, encourage me and help me out, and also please check out the smutember fics in general! We've been gifted SO MANY GEMS, guys! So if you want to spread some sweet sweet platonic love and affection to them without ulterior motives imma be very happy lol!

* * *

**Part II**

* * *

She found him sitting on the little bench outside of that one coffee shop at the edge of Arisugawa-no-Miya park, the small one with the bicycle hanging upside down from the ceiling in the picture window, and Mamoru was possibly in a mood even fouler than hers when she sat down in the seat next to him.

Besides, it was the oldest trick in her self-help book. If she was feeling like she was in a hole she couldn't dig herself out of, digging someone out of theirs at least made her feel worthwhile.

"You look like you could use some company," Usagi said, and made herself comfortable completely uninvited.

He sighed, then hit the back of his head against the glass behind him.

"Did the old-man-clothes shop stop making purple pleated pants?" she asked slyly, propping her chin up in her fist.

At least he snorted.

"No," he said, the ghost of a smile playing around his lips. "They still stock my clothes just fine."

"Darn," she grinned back.

And there it was. A full smile, one of his warm ones just for her. She kind of wanted to fist-pump.

He nodded his head towards the entrance of the café. "Do you want something?"

She threw him a look. "I always want something."

He threw her a look back, but this time it was more affection than exasperation. Turning in his seat, he lifted his hand, signalling the barista.

She tugged off her mittens (baby blue plastic wool this time, Mamoru glared at them), and grabbed the tiny little menu tucked behind the edge of the bench. The name of the cafe was embossed in pretty cursive script. "What's good?" she asked, scanning it.

"The coffee."

She pulled a face. He chuckled.

"It's literally in the name. Nem: Coffee and Espresso."

"Do they have milkshakes?" she interrupted, completely ignoring him.

"No."

She pouted.

"Ramune?"

He shook his head, she pouted harder.

"I heard their Daifuku is supposed to be good."

There we go. Finally something good. Without waiting for the barista to have to come outside for her, she hopped off the little platform and walked inside. But when she walked back out, unpacking her Daifuku and grief-mrompfing into it, the back of his head was back against the glass, his gaze forlorn and kind of lost.

Her heart fell, and she watched his profile for a second. He looked absolutely heartbroken, his eyes full of sorrow, his shoulders limp and hanging as he stared unseeing into the distance.

Nodding, she moved back onto the platform in one big leap, startling him, and sat back down next to him carefully, brushing her jacket over her bum, because the wood was cold.

"So what's got you sighing that much for real?" she asked right out, and he proved her point by sighing even harder.

He lifted his coffee cup to his mouth, the steam playing around his nose, and kept looking into the distance. For a while she thought he wouldn't answer, but then he surprised her.

Looking down into his coffee cup, he shrugged. "I'm lonely," he answered.

And it punched her in the face.

"In a nutshell," he continued. "And I don't want to be."

Her whole body froze. She didn't know why this shocked her so much. Why his words _threw_ her so much, except—

As always, he could immediately read her stricken, affected mood. "Sorry," he apologized, turning his face and looking her directly into the eyes.

What the fuck.

"No!" she cried. She hit her fist and her Daifuku against the bench.

He jumped, surprised. Lifted an eyebrow. " _No_?" he intoned, a sliver of his usual amusement in his voice.

She felt like stomping her foot like a cranky child. Her voice certainly sounded like it. "You're not supposed to be lonely!" she protested vehemently.

His other eyebrow joined the party, but his doubtful, tilted smile was back. "I don't think you get to decide that, Odango."

" _No_!" she cried.

He turned, watched her.

"You're my friend!" she cried on, as if it made sense.

But most shockingly, he recoiled in confusion. "I _am_?" he asked, and she gaped.

" _Yes_!" She shoved him in the shoulder. Of course he was, what the hell! "And as my friend, I'm not gonna _let_ you be lonely!"

He huffed the smallest laugh. A little snort. "I really don't think that's how it works, Odango."

"Well, it'll just have to!"

He laughed again. It was such a beautiful sound, if just too faint.

But then it fell again, that smile, completely erased. He swirled his coffee in his cup.

"It's more a specific loneliness. Not a general one," he said quietly.

She frowned, confused. "So it's about…?"

He kept silent for a beat. Swallowed. Looked back up and into the distance, and she waited it out.

"A girl," he whispered eventually.

...Oh.

And why _that_ one threw her so, she did not understand. But it did. Low, straight into her guts. She swallowed it down.

He turned his head again, found her eyes. Shrugged in that sad, apologetic way.

Usagi crossed her legs, then her arms. "Well," she started. "I hate her already."

One side of Mamoru's lips quirked up.

And then he sighed again.

"It's not really her fault," he said.

She raised her eyebrow just like he always did, because she'd learned from the best.

He shook his head at her. "Well, it really kind of isn't."

"'Kind of,'" she asked, and he threw her a look for kind of throwing his own words back at her.

But this time, when he lifted his cup back to his lips and stared out into nothing, he did not eventually elaborate.

And so, when it dragged on too long, she slapped her hands against her knees, clapping against her black skinny jeans.

"Well, I'll just have to make you feel less lonely, then," she vowed loudly.

He did smile then, when he turned his head. "As I said," he said in that eye-rolling tone that was all affection and all Mamoru. "It's not the friend kind of lonely I'm feeling."

"Pfft," Usagi snorted. " _One_ friend maybe can't make up for that, but 10 certainly can. And let me tell you, I can _easily_ be as overwhelming as 10 friends all at once. We're going shopping tomorrow, baka, I need a fake bridesmaid dress."

And this time, he really, genuinely laughed.

Usagi beamed.

"I mean it," she said, clapping her knees. "You're not gonna be lonely while I'm around, now drink up, and get your ass off that bench, you're treating me to Cremia—"

"It's 2°!" he cried in offense, but she threw him a look, as if that was any argument against ice cream.

But she just jumped up, put on her mittens, and made him drink up.

He did. Smiling oh-so-softly, and she felt a little better immediately.

* * *

Tuxedo Mask still saved her. But it was like it had been in the beginning. When he waited around to make an entrance. Only swooped in when she was in danger, and otherwise stayed back.

It made her throat constrict and the tears fall, so angry at herself.

He was still always there. She _felt_ him. Even when he didn't show his face because they got it handled, she knew he was watching, but kept away. And when he did step in, blocking her, distracting the enemy for her, lifting her out of harm's way with trembling hands and too-modest touches, he never lingered around.

She had no one to blame but herself. And her stupid heart pointed out that she'd now done it before he ever knew what she was like.

She'd disappointed him.

One night, she stopped him.

She followed him exactly two rooftops before he turned around, because Tuxedo Mask _always_ knew if she was there. He was too observant to be snuck-up on.

"Tuxedo Ma—" she started, but he interrupted her.

"Why can't I know?" he asked her, eyes ahead and at the neon lights of Tokyo.

Her throat constricted, pinched tight and painful and she couldn't breathe.

"Y-you know that we—"

He shook his head sharply. "No."

And then he whirled around. Walked the two steps to her and closed the distance between them completely. He stooped and stood so close she could see the flecks in his irises behind the mask, so close every harsh intake of his breath brushed the fabric of his costume against her skin.

His voice broke.

"All I want is to be able to say your name..."

And with that, her tears bubbled over.

His gloves caught them, his thumb brushing against her cheeks.

"Why can't I know?" he whispered.

Her words were watery. Choked up. "What if I'm not the kind of girl you would want?" she cried.

He frowned as if the mere idea were absolute nonsense. "That's impossible," he said darkly.

But he couldn't possibly know that.

She sobbed, pressed her hands against her mouth, and fled.

* * *

She sat on a cold stone bench on a cold afternoon that felt like a cold night because January afternoons were dark and did that to you, and she didn't want to go home and not tell her Mama why she was looking like that.

There was another downside for secret relationships. You couldn't cry in anyone's arms when your secret partner/probably not enemy/probably no longer boyfriend decided he had enough of your crappy bullshit.

And so Kimi-chan square it was, forlornly people-watching in the cold and singling out the lucky bastards who walked in pairs with an envious stink eye. There'd been a girl who'd slipped her bare fingers into her boyfriend's gloves. Man.

But she kept sighing, kept sitting there even when the temperature dropped even more and she started to shiver and the sky started to mist the softest powder of snow on her ever so slightly.

When she held out her hand and caught one in her purple cheapo mittens, just before it melted, it was a perfect little ice crystal.

She shivered and sighed.

And then jumped, because a tattered, old, and deliciously warm green jacket fell over her shoulders.

She looked up startled, found Mamoru's eyes as he stood right behind her, hands still raised where he'd dropped his most offensive piece of clothing on her with half a smile that looked kind of sad and an inquiring tilt of his head.

He was in a thick scarf and turtleneck, except it wasn't his usual black one but that thick sophisticated wool kind that looked like little braids in dense anthracite-colored threads. It looked warm, but this time he shivered too.

"You don't need to do that," she said, turning her eyes back down and stroking her mittens against the thick lapel of that old jacket and smoothing it against her purple windbreaker.

He'd changed his clothes over the years. Combined them better. But staples like this one still appeared in different combos, and it made her smile in strange nostalgia.

"You looked cold," he said with a shrug as he sat down next to her, that pretty profile as lost in thought as she was, and brought one leather gloved hand up to sip steaming, smelly coffee in a bamboo to-go cup, then held it with both hands afterwards.

"I know you have a decent coat, why do you never wear it?" he asked her as his eyes tried to follow where she was looking, what she was watching.

"There's coffee all over it still because I'm useless at adulting," she said right out with a dejected sigh, because with Mamoru, she didn't feel like she needed to pretend.

He only nodded, as if it was the most normal thing to procrastinate getting your seasonal clothes in shape all season, the occasional snowflake fluttering against his hair and melting there.

"Bring it with you next time we see each other," he said with an absentminded shrug, and took another sip of his coffee.

She furrowed her brows, turned to look at him, jacket brushing against its rightful owner.

He shrugged, gave her the most melancholy encouraging smile and flicked his eyes back to the couple she'd been watching last. "I have a good dry-cleaner I go to almost every week anyway. It's no hassle to just bring it in with mine."

She straightened. Blinked. Hard. That was… one of the nicest things he'd ever offered.

His face turned to her just slightly. " _What_?" he asked, side-eyeing her, before they moved back on to the next couple.

Her throat suddenly felt full of overwhelming… something.

"I'll do that," she whispered, tucked her purple hands between her thighs to warm them up beneath the fabric, and let her eyes stray back to the next couple as he absentmindedly nodded.

They were cute. Looked happy. Tall guy, smaller brunette girlfriend in a cute wool hat. Leisurely walking down the street, the guy's arm slung around her shoulders as they chatted. Assholes.

She noted that both Mamoru's eyes and hers were following them down the road as they disappeared around the corner, then switched onto the next couple and did the same. Looking, most probably to everyone who might be watching, like those cats in the videos where you filmed the cats and not the tennis they were watching.

"Can I ask you something?" Usagi asked into the quiet.

He gave the slightest, most nonchalant nod, not turning to look, one elbow on one dark, slim-jean-ed knee, sipping from his bamboo cup.

"You know, with me being undateable and so on,"

But with that, his frowning eyes flew to her, full turn, concern shining from them.

"You know that I was a teenager and a dick when I said that."

She threw him a shrug. "I mean, you weren't wrong."

His brow furrowed even more. "I _was_."

She rolled her eyes, leaned over to nudge his shoulder with hers, but he was a stiff, unmovable board and his frown only deepened. "Just go with the argument please."

His eyes narrowed even further, but he nodded in that 'do go on' way.

She huffed, straightened her back, frowned into the distance, collected her words. "If you, like," she started, "were in a position where you dated a girl you thought was like, _really_ amazing. Like, if I had pretended to be like, _super_ great and _super_ capable and like, super _super_ duper—"

He'd fully turned on the bench. Tense as a brick, glaring. "Usagi."

"No, please," she shook her hand in his direction, interrupting him. "Like. Say you dated me. And I would paint you this picture and pretended to be really great. But then beneath that is _me_. Like, then you find out what I'm _really_ like, undateable disaster and all," she rambled out. "Like, _how_ deeply disappointed would you be exactly?"

And with that, she turned to look into his eyes again, and recoiled a bit when they were painted in quiet fury.

His words were cutting menace. "Is this about your 'boyfriend'?"

But she recoiled, too, worked up and irritable. "Did you just use finger quotations?" she glowered, overreacting. "Because what, I invented him? Undateable, unladylike girl like me has to make up a guy who likes her—"

Yet with that, he looked absolutely horrified.

"Usagi," he cut in angrily, eyes snapping. "If he doesn't like you the way you are, he's the biggest idiot on the fucking planet."

She frowned.

But he went on, eyes blazing, turned and leaned dark and angry into her personal space. "I'm really sorry I said these things to you. They're horrible. And they were wrong. You're perfect the way you are. But please, don't take something an infantile asshole on the street said to you over half a decade ago to mean any sort of truth about your character."

She glared at him, but then it fell. The fight leaving her, and she slumped, looked back at the street.

And with her standing down, it seemed contagious. His features fell, he sat back, but she felt his eyes still cutting into her profile.

"It's not only you who thought that way about me," she admitted quietly.

He sighed. Turned back, his eyes back to following her gaze on people on the street.

"The words that we feel attacked by the most are usually the ones that have already been hurting us, Usagi," he said equally quietly, sadly.

Her brow furrowed in utter confusion. What was that supposed to mean?

But then his gaze hardened. He stretched out his legs, crossing them prettily at the ankles. His bamboo cup met the surface of their stone bench with a dull little clack as he placed it beside him, empty.

Her heart sped up when his earnest eyes met hers.

"If he thinks these things," Mamoru said, slow, enunciating every word, "he doesn't deserve you. Please dump the fuck out of him."

She curled up her nose, turned her gaze away, pulled at the corner of his large green jacket to bury herself in it further. "It's not like that," she said.

He sighed, long and hard. Leaned forward, elbows on his knees, watching her sideways. She felt his eyes.

He got up only after a while. Picked up his bamboo cup and held it between those elegant leather gloves. Towered over her and gave her a long look she only slowly returned.

It was strange. Being stared at by Mamoru like that never felt wrong. Never felt weird. It only felt seen.

No matter how long she stared right back.

But he was the one to break it first tonight. Still that serious gaze, but with a slow tilt of his head, a swish of his hair, and she only now realised it had stopped snowing. "I want you to be happy, Usagi," he said.

The words curled around her heart. Softer than she'd expected. And she sighed, and curled her lips up in return, to give some of that back.

"I want you to be happy, too," she whispered back. Because it was the honest truth.

He smiled, nodded, and left her with his beloved green jacket still around her shoulders.

* * *

In the end, it was nothing more than a thought that took root in her brain that allowed her to face her fears and truly make herself feel naked. Truly allow herself to be seen.

_The words that we feel attacked by the most are usually the ones that have already been hurting us, Usagi._

Mamoru's words had rung in her head so long and so hard they sounded foreign and weird and somehow spoke to her on a level she did not understand.

She hadn't understood what he'd meant when he'd said them. She _still_ wasn't sure she understood what he'd _actually_ meant to say when he said them.

And yet they'd worked in her. Posing for fake party pictures where she helped other people fulfill their unfulfilled expectations of society by orchestrating make-believe. Watching them go to such great lengths to pretend to be something they were not just to fit in better, it worked in her.

She was terrified Tuxedo Mask would look at her and be disappointed. Because people had looked at her in the past _so often_ and had been disappointed, and now the stakes were so much higher than they always were.

But what was hurting her was not anything he was doing, or even saying, or even hypothetically thinking. What was hurting her was her experience. Her anticipation of expectations that had been hurting her all her life.

And it wasn't only 'their' expectations of her from others. They didn't come from outside, not anymore. No one made it their business to scold her for grades or lack of focus now that she was expected to handle these things on her own. Not even Luna was scolding her on what she ought to be doing instead anymore. Those days were over. Maybe they'd just given up, she didn't know. Or maybe they'd accepted that this was just who she was. So no, it wasn't only the expectations others had of her, it were expectations she'd learned to have of herself. A picture society told her she was supposed to be in the colors of her flaws, but the colors never changed. And they kept hurting her because they put the finger right on the things she was never to be flawless at.

But…

Maybe it wasn't so unforgivable to not be flawless.

Maybe it was ok to be a delightful disaster. Maybe it didn't need to hurt her when people focused more on the disaster. Maybe it wasn't her job to please everyone. Maybe it was ok to not be totally complete on your own, to have puzzle pieces missing to be filled by people who were better at these things than you.

After all, there were so many people who saw her flaws and nagged at them, but with the people who truly mattered in her life, that didn't mean they didn't still stick around, it didn't mean they didn't love her anyway.

Maybe it was time to figure out if he would stick around, too. Or maybe even whether or not he expected those things of her, too, in the first place. And maybe, if he ended up not liking her the way she was, maybe Mamoru was right. Maybe that was his loss. And maybe that didn't have to mean he could not still be on their side, when worst came to worst. Even if he chose not to want to share her bed, maybe he could still choose to follow her in battle anyway. Because if anything, she did trust Tuxedo Mask to follow Sailor Moon. And she was Sailor Moon, flaws and all.

And while these things sounded good and logical in her head, they still terrified the fuck out of her. They required more bravery than she'd ever needed facing any youma.

Usagi didn't wait for a battle that he might lurk around for and not show his face if he wasn't needed. She didn't wait for a situation where her adrenaline was already spiking high, her fear for her life affecting her fear for her heart when he looked at her and asked for answers.

No. About a week after Mamoru's words had taken root in her thoughts, she transformed, knowing Tuxedo Mask would feel it, and then she waited on the one rooftop she knew to be a minute away from that balcony door where he lived.

It was a weird time of day. The middle of the afternoon on a random weekday, and she waited for a while, overthinking and worrying that this was stupid. He was probably at work, wherever he worked, whatever he worked as. She'd probably worried him, made him antsy and anxious to get out of his obligations for literally nothing. It was brash and unthinking of her all over again. She should have done that at night, what had she been _thinking_? And so when that thought came to her, over an hour later on that roof, shivering and cold in the middle of winter on a rooftop in a fluttering mini-skirt, she panicked and turned to leave, cursing herself and her stupidity.

Of course, when she turned around to hop off the building, she saw him standing right behind her, watching her.

His cape rustling in the wind, his hair flowing beneath the hat.

The anxiety climbed back up her spine, paralyzing her.

"How long have you been here?" she asked, her voice shaking a bit with her nerves, and maybe the cold.

"Just a minute or so," he said, distant and unreadable, but so, so searching.

He didn't comment on the elephant on the rooftop. That there was no battle. Where they were. What that meant. He just waited for her to speak.

After all, he'd been waiting for her to speak for a while.

Her heart raced, her chest hurt, she felt dizzy. All the small hairs rose on her skin in fear. She'd never been so terrified. And yet she held his gaze, and then she spoke. Because he was here, and this was what she needed to do.

"It's not Luna," she pressed out, voice shaking.

His brow twitched in utter confusion about a name he's never heard, and then his eyes scanned her, focused with a start on her shaking hands, the way they clawed into her skirt.

"And it's not that I don't trust you," she continued, oh so agitated. "I trust you with my _life_." She swallowed, pulling at her skirt. "I trust you with _anyone's_ life. I trust you with the world and the life of any princess and with any stupid mythical rocks. I trust you so much that I think if it comes to it and we're at opposing sides, that I'll be inclined to think your side would be the right one to be on."

She'd yelled it all out, and afterwards, his eyes were blown up wide.

It made her falter. Made her heart beat even harder when he… didn't say anything.

"It's not that," she murmured, quietly now. "I promise it's not that."

Down on the street, a group of children were scream-laughing in that way little children tended to do, and it travelled up in nonsensical sound so very unfitting the mood up here.

She jumped a little when in one stride, he came close. Exhaled harshly when he came so close that he filled up all her senses, leaning down. Eyes flashing as he searched her gaze in that intense, scanning way he always tended to look at her, trying to _see_.

"Then what is it?" he asked her eyes.

She freed her lip from a sharp bite she didn't know she'd been abusing it with, exhaled up and against his chin, her neck craned to look up at him. "I'm terrified," she admitted almost inaudibly.

His brow tensed. "Of me?" he asked, and her breath stuttered.

"No," she said, frowning. "I don't know. _Maybe_!"

At that, his eyes flashed with hurt behind the mask, and so she hurried to explain.

"But also of _me_!" she cried, and her hand flew up and clawed itself desperately into the lapel of his jacket, begging him to understand what she had trouble saying.

She breathed hard, he waited.

She kneaded her fist into the fabric. Spoke to his jacket, to his chest, and not at him. "Sailor Moon is a symbol," she said with difficulty.

He shifted. She knew, would she look up, he'd look confused again. His hand was already lifting to her elbow.

She huffed, went on. "She's a hero. She stands for things. She's…"

She swallowed.

"She's… she's… She's if you take me, and put a filter on everything that's atrocious. A big giant floating censure bar on all the things I don't want you to see of me. She's the very best of me, but she's _only_ the best of me and—"

With that, his hands were on her. On her face, stroking down her hair, but she stubbornly focused on his chest. Spread both hands against the crisp white shirt. Felt the way his heart was hammering beneath her palm, and it showed her he was as nervous as her, and maybe it was ok to feel this way.

"Underneath this, I'm only me. I'm not a superhero. I'm only _me_. I trip and fall and stumble through my life, my attention span is that of an overexcited squirrel, I chew my pencils and I lose a lot of jobs that I don't manage to fit in and that's not _only_ because I run out at random times to go fight bad guys that I can't explain. I'm not Sailor Moon beneath the costume. Not _always_. Not _really_. But you like _Sailor Moon_."

His breath rushed out in a way that felt… important. But she still didn't look up. Couldn't.

She didn't look up when his fingers brushed at her chin and she didn't look up when he stepped so close that their bodies touched all over. When he stepped so close she could feel him tremble, too, stooped above her, curled around her.

But she listened when he spoke.

"Close your eyes," he hushed against her lips, earnest and intense, and she listened immediately, momentarily. _Relieved_.

When he lifted her, she let herself fall into his arms. She clawed at him, fingers in the fabric, warm from his body, wrapped her arms tight around his shoulders, and then she climbed him. Pressed her face into the crook of his neck and clung to him like a monkey, weird and intense and needy. And when he jumped with her in his arms, she knew where they were going.

The slide of a balcony door, the ripping sound of curtains across rails, all while she was still clawed to the front of him, his hand on the small of her back, barely needing to hold her up with the way she'd clawed herself around him.

And then his arms were around her, hugging her back as he stood with her in the middle of this room when she didn't let him go.

She needed a moment until she dared to open her eyes, clinging to him, her cheek pressed against his neck. But when she did, she started.

The room was dark. But not as dark as it had been the last time she was here. It was light outside and the thick curtains couldn't hold all that light out. She could see the shadows of an open kitchen on one side, the bed on another. She could see it was tidy and small, and she clung to him harder.

And his hands stroked down her back and waited it out. Waited it out when she clung even harder, pressed her lips desperately against his neck, his throat, his ear. Inhaled and bit and kissed, and all the while, his fingertips only scratched lightly up and down her spine.

When she eventually descended, it threw her all anew. It was dark, yes. His black tuxedo, the black of his hair, it all melted in the shadows, but she could still see him in the faint light. He didn't detransform - hadn't even removed his _hat_ and he _always_ removed his hat - and he was standing in a dark apartment that was _his_ and that she could _see,_ if only in black and greys.

Slowly, she reached up, and his eyes flashed when she took the top hat off and flung it blindly to the side.

He stayed really, really close.

"You're not a symbol to me," he said, and her skin jumped. "Not in the way you think."

She ripped her eyes up then, finally, saw his eyes look at her in that searching, searching way.

Slowly, with careful movements, he took his gloves off. And then, in the most tender, heartbreakingly gentle way, his fingers made her feel electric. They were so unfairly warm against her freezing skin when he ran his fingers oh-so-softly down her arm, up her leg, everywhere she was naked, goosebumps rising in the wake of his touch.

"I'm not blind," he breathed down at her. "I've seen you stumble through every battle all these years. I _catch_ you. I see your fear, every time," he said, and she couldn't help the whimper. Couldn't help the way her hand flew up to cover his, so he would touch her more, firmer. "I admire that you _get up afterwards_. _Every time_."

The last, he spoke right against her lips, his face slanted over hers, but he didn't kiss her. And then he smiled, and she felt the pull of his lips against her skin.

"I also happen to find people who stumble a bit through their life very endearing."

She exhaled harshly, shuddering. Clawed at the fabric of his jacket, but then he _stopped_.

Then he stepped _back_.

"I can be a giant jerk," he told her from a slight distance, and she gaped at him, her very skin crying for him. "Especially when I'm overwhelmed. And I suck at articulating how I feel. I close up when I'm scared and then I push people away."

And her heart _puckered_. Painfully. That… He _also—_ She—

She stepped towards him, wide-eyed, and he took another step back immediately, his head tilted in that way that felt so awfully familiar.

"But…" he said slowly, holding her gaze. "If that's what it is? If you're scared…?" he asked.

She held her breath when he did reach out. In the most modest way, he reached out to push a stray lock of hair behind her ear, watched the passage of it as he did so.

"I can wait for that. I can try to do my best so that you feel you can show me one day what you don't want me to see." And then his eyes flicked back to hers, and she'd never loved him more. "I can also accept when you never want me to see."

Her chest exploded. _How_? How could he be so friggin' patient with her. So _accepting_? Here this man stood, telling her he would take it if this went on forever, if she was never ready to give him what he so clearly wanted. And somehow, it was all she'd ever needed.

It made her fall harder than she'd ever thought possible.

It came out confusing, visibly so. She _growled_. His eyebrows jumped up in confusion, and he gasped when she pulled at his jacket, pushed at his chest, yanked at him. His mouth popped open in surprise when she attacked it, made a gurgling sound when she licked her tongue into his mouth, until he finally got the memo and his hands fluttered to her side and his mouth opened wider in a moan and he finally kissed her back the way she needed him to.

His hand shot around her, cupped her ass and squeezed along to his shuddering breath right down her lungs. And when she pushed him off her with a yank, gloves at his chest, his lips were kiss-swollen and his eyes more confused than ever before.

But then she pushed him more, and he collapsed on his back, bouncing off his mattress ever so slightly, and his eyes flashed in a different way.

She climbed on top of him and he groaned, her fingers clutching at his jacket, pulling him up to her lips as she fell down at them, and his mouth was wide and slanted and fucking heaven and his tongue her favorite dessert.

He was whimpering hard when her hands clawed at his shirt, pulling it from his pants, and she leaned down to lick a line against his heated, warm skin. From the hem of his pants to the dip in his chest, lifting the fabric up as she went, then pressed her ear against his heart like a weirdo only because she couldn't get enough of hearing it beat so very, very hard.

His hand in her hair, bare fingers stroking down her scalp, pressing her there, and she was ready to cry.

When she looked back up, his head had shifted the pillow, and she froze.

His eyes searched hers, bewildered yet again as to her reaction, but—

Her silly lemon pajama top lay in his bed. It lay by his pillow.

Tuxedo Mask had found her pajamas in his apartment, flung god-knows-where, and now it lay with him in his bed, weeks later. He slept with her clothes, her smell, a reminder of _her_ in his bed, and it made her chest constrict because it could not contain the feeling.

His gaze was searching, as always. Watching.

"Close your eyes," she whimpered down at him.

And of course. _Of course_ , he closed them without hesitation, and it made tears spring to her eyes - she didn't know what emotion they were made of - before she closed her own lids as well.

She leaned over him, found his lips blindly, clumsily. Puckered her own against the corner of his mouth and then his lower lip, before she whispered, "Detransform."

He gasped against her mouth, but this time he didn't ask to clarify. He just did it, and she felt the shift of clothes underneath her, beneath her hands and thighs and chest and belly. No thick coat this time, but thin fabric, the same for both his top (T-Shirt?) and his pants (...sweatpants? _Pajamas_? In the middle of the day? What _was_ it?) and maybe this was all a mistake, because she immediately wanted to sit up and _look_ and—

Squeezing her eyes shut even harder, she exhaled against his shuddering mouth, and then she detransformed as well.

His voice was this hoarse, quivering, pained thing when his hands shot up around her, and she _knew_ he was exploring blindly just as she had done. Clumsy, wild hands against her ass, her leg, her arm, gliding and feeling and searching frantically for hems.

She helped him, caught her blouse and ripped it from her skirt, then contorted to get it off and fling it away, accidentally swatting at his hands. But they found her chest anyway, warm hands slipping and stroking and following the band of her bralette to her back.

He ripped at it, frustrated grunts, and she chuckled right at his mouth, reached back for the (for once) well-practiced art of unseeing bra-removal, and when it fell away, his guttural moan was music to her ears.

She didn't know _where_ he'd wanted to kiss exactly, but she knew the places he found were unusual, wild. He licked up her skin, rubbed his cheek against the underside of one breast, inhaled and pressed his face against her, and she curled her hand into his hair and he jumped when she appeared to slap him in the face instead.

They both snorted at once. It was so absurd, his chuckle so _beautiful,_ but however _weird_ the places he found, she wanted _more_. Following the contours of his skin wherever it may lead, dragging her teeth against muscle and softness and precious hardness that she instantly recognised.

He huffed hard, his face in her hands tensing, when his hands couldn't figure out the situation of her clothes, and she laughed into his mouth and he gobbled it all up and it was the best sensation ever. "Tights," she informed his lips, and got an "Ahhh," in return, before his hand travelled up, surer now, and slipped inside. Because, well, tight mini skirt on high-waist tights _was_ pretty hard to figure out just by touch, she figured, and she pushed her hands into her clothes along with his and then dragged it all down her legs, his palms digging tight into her limbs and it felt fucking damn reverent.

She pulled his underwear down directly with his pants, accidently poked her closed eye with his jutting dick. He _attempted_ to sexily drag her panties down with his teeth but lost his grip somewhere mid-thigh and then weirdly bit around her leg in an attempt to find them again before he grunted and just pushed his hands down her legs, and then pushed them back up to her clit, changing her amused laugh to a hissed moan immediately.

It was absurd. It was weird. It was glorious, and she couldn't get enough. Pushed back against his hand, pressed her tongue against whatever bit of skin she was currently catching, felt the hard jut of his cock rub against her in the weirdest places to the sound of his frustrated snorts.

But when she had his cock in her hand he hissed through his teeth, and she found the tip of it almost as weeping wet as she felt herself.

And then he twisted. Stretched. When the first thing clattered and clashed and he cursed and 'Ouch-ed' his way through the motion, she understood he was reaching for something unsuccessfully. Until he was back on her skin and his hands somewhere in the general vicinity of her shoulders and he spoke against her cheek.

"I'm gonna turn around and get a condom," he said, voice apologetic. Meaning, I'm gonna open my eyes. Her stomach flipped.

But then he added just a small murmur, and her heart flipped, too.

"Get behind me," he said, and then waited.

She did. Move behind him, that is. And this man held his promise and didn't look, because he waited until she was at his back, and only then did she hear him shift, move. The sound of a drawer. The sound of ripping foil.

And because he was a better person than she was, clearly, she opened her eyes like a douche, thundering heart and all. But obviously, all she saw was his back, moving in the dark. Muscled skin and jutting spine, sitting at the edge of his narrow bed she'd almost fallen off twice in the past ten minutes or so, his face leaned down towards his dick as he rolled on the condom, his infuriatingly pretty butt shifting against the sheets.

And then he was done, his spine lengthening, his hair shifting across the nape of his neck, and she held her breath.

"I'm turning back around," he breathed.

Her eyes blew wide. Temptation so _strong_. She _almost—_

But then she shut her eyes tight, tight, tight at the last second, and his hands stroked back over her skin, making her sigh in utter frustration.

On top of her now, his lips hit almost in weirder places. She could tell so well he was doing it with his eyes closed. The crook where her boob curved into her armpit, or _just_ to the side of her clavicle, running his lips in weird diagonal movements down her chest and kissing wherever he could reach.

His fingers fumbling even clumsier than before - and so beautifully _shaky_ \- running up the inside of her thigh first before orienting anew, then his fingers at her opening and rubbing up in search of her clit that his fingertips didn't quite find at first from this angle until her gasp told him he hit jackpot, and he rubbed in the way she showed him against a wire-mesh fence.

She clutched at him, warm skin beneath her palms and his lips against her shoulder, when his dick did the same, his fist dragging it ever so slightly too high, trying to poke, before she reached down to help him along and he _finally_ slipped inside.

His sigh was more of a whimper, hers a long exhale.

He sunk slowly, savoringly, and it was _perfect_. And when he was in all the way, filling her out and clenching around him, she reached out. Pulled.

He collapsed on top of her, panting, her cheek against his hair, her fingers clawed into his scalp.

He didn't move his hips, waited for her always, pressed so deep inside of her, twitching and worked up.

It wasn't much of a conscious decision. She just blinked her eyes open, and knew she didn't want to close them again. Of course, she only saw his ceiling. His face cradled in the crook of her neck, her hand in his hair, his breath so labored against her throat, waiting.

But…

"Open your eyes," she whispered.

He jolted. The movement pressed his dick inside her harder, and she mewled through his startled "What?"

"Open your eyes," she moaned again, and stroked her fingers down the nape of his neck.

And then she let go of his head. Dropped her hand down to his side, instead.

He still didn't move, not for a moment. Until, with an anxious sort of sequence of worked up breath, his arms moved to her face, his own lips still pressed against her neck.

"Look at me," she whispered.

Lifting himself up around her, so, so slowly, time stopped the second she saw his face. She couldn't breathe. She flared up all over. She tingled and her blood screamed and her eyes must have been pure shock, too, when she looked into the shocked eyes of Chiba Mamoru, currently naked on top of her and buried deep, deep inside of her.

He found his breath first. It bubbled out in a whoosh, and it kind of rushed out as an incredulous laugh, his eyes jumping between both of hers and his hands stroking against her face, brushing back her fringe, the hair from her face, cupping it, caressing it, over and over and over, thumbs against her cheeks, her eyebrows, holding her.

"Hi," she said, shocked.

"Hi," he bubbled out, his lips stretching, grinning, then shaking his head at her in utter disbelief. His laughter was wide-eyed surprise, but she knew. She knew it was wonder. _Relief_.

It was so fucking _right_. How could this be so _right_?!

He never let go of her face. Never stopped stroking his thumbs down her cheek, even when, only a little later, he started moving.

When she whimpered this time at the sensation of his cock letting go and coming back, his eyes were that searching, piercing, hyper-alert look she'd known of him for years, his thumb at her lip to catch every tremble of it.

It was the slowest, gentlest sex they'd ever had, the slowest sex they'd ever have, the best moment of her life. And he saw her and he kept seeing her and her heart was as friggin' full as she felt of his cock deep, deep inside.

And when he sunk back in next, it was so slow she pinched her hands impatiently into his butt, shuddering, and he fucking grinned.

"You _kind of_ have a boyfriend, yeah?" he grinned against her lips.

She flushed, heat crawling up her chest, her face, and he laughed so delightedly, so _happily_ , his thumbs drawing circles against her face in a touch more tender than she could ever have imagined as he slowly, _slowly_ rolled his hips back against hers.

She shuddered, stretched on his cock and he bit his lip but never looked away, and she curled her face against his hand.

"Do I?" she asked, heart beating, and this time his eyes flashed and when he thrust into her next, it was hard and deep and possessive.

"Oh, you _do_ ," he assured her with the most determined, vindicated look in his arsenal and she shuddered.

His hands cupped her face so tight. Almost shook it. "You definitely do," he implored, eyes wild, and he thrust back inside to her keening sigh. "God, Usako," he groaned, "Yes, you do."

She whimpered, lifted her hips, rolled her hips against him to meet this slow dance in the middle, and his thumb kept stroking her cheek under her bated breath, her wild eyes as she willed her brain to take in every moment of this, every molecule of him in and on and around her so she would never forget this miracle moment.

And then he leaned down and kissed her. Met her lips just as he'd fully sunk back into her, and her shudder into his mouth met a moan of his own. It was the most tender stroking of his lips, the most tentative touch of his tongue, the softest kiss they'd ever shared. As if they were doing this for the very first time, and maybe they kind of were. _All_ of them, at least.

"You promised to make me feel less lonely, remember?" he breathed into her lips, and kissed her just a little harder.

* * *

Fin

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here's one of the most personal pieces of writing I've ever shared with you, I think. I love Usagi. I adore her. She's an everlasting role model for me. It pains me to see her character changed in fics, and it hurts my soul to see her WANTING to change herself for others. But I also am like her in a lot of ways. Many of her strengths are my strengths, more of her flaws are my flaws. And I've been in her shoes and in her insecurities a lot, especially growing up, and that's why the things that hurt her (because they are the things that hurt me) attack me so much. It's my own hurt too. So having her feel it so deeply, those flaws of hers (those flaws of mine), and having her feel like she has to hide parts of herself from others as to not be judged, and all the things she lets herself get re-attacked by because they are already wounds, hurt to write a shitton. But giving this character a person and a place (that she canonically HAS and gets!), who sees these flaws and thinks they are ok, making her believe they are ok, too, that they belong to her, that they make her her? That she sees the flaws and gets hurt by them and because of them, but ultimately, they are allowed to stay? Most of my works around her character are lessons in self-love (Because. I love Usagi Tsukino. Adore her. This flawed, wonderful person who is a lot like me. So that's a lesson for myself right there too.) But this right here was a piece of (self-)acceptance.
> 
> And so please excuse me for allowing her to put herself down so much in this piece, and for letting the insecurity overman her for once. I promise I usually don't let her do that (and myself either!). But self-acceptance is not ignorance, it's forgiveness.
> 
> Anyway, I really hope you enjoyed this story, too. I wrote this story of two babies who unconditionally accept each other and are drawn to each other no matter the face they wear, no matter it they are even aware of that affection, and it kind of means a lot to me now, so please be gentle with me lol? 
> 
> (Also, you can't convince me having sex with Tsukino Usagi while she has her eyes closed wouldn't leave a few bruises.)

**Author's Note:**

> Anyway someone told me lately that most of my romantic tension in a smut scene came with their eye contact. So I challenged myself and removed that eye contact completely for a chapter lol. You tell me if I still succeeded in establishing a connection between them without it.


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